Nightmare

Chapter 1

Sophia’s POV

It’s ironic that the most interesting thing to ever happen to me happens in my year 12 English class, with such background music as Mrs Spinner’s droning and Why the hell am I in here? The latter is a compilation by the students of my school, and although it’s a very repetitive piece – I find myself really relating to it.

Mrs Spinner talks in monotone. All the time. Which – as you can imagine – is rather irritating, but that’s not enough; she’s really old, she speaks at a pace similar to the speed of dialup internet and if you interrupt her train of thought...she gets confused, forgets what she’s saying and starts all over again.

That’s why there’s no point in stopping her and complaining about it– but this hasn’t seemed to cross any of the obnoxious boys in my class’ minds.

Now I’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes listening to her recite the same couple of sentences over and over again; I’m really starting to get kind of annoyed. Mrs Spinner is not going to let us move a muscle until she’s finished what she’s saying and yet despite this they keep on interrupting; it just makes me wonder why these kids are taking regular English in preference to foundation.

Bringing my fingertips to my temples I look around; Mrs Spinner wants us to find something interesting to write a story about in class. But then as if trying to doom us to failure before we even put pen to paper she’s picked our town museum as inspiration.

The town museum if walked into by any tourist would represent my town and its people as a bunch of hicks. There’s tractors – blue ones, red ones, green and yellow ones (all of them rusty ones) – and they’re everywhere. We walked past the souvenir shop and there’s a bunch of plastic and stuffed ones. I remember being taken here as a child and my mum bought me a remote control one with a matching plough that turned up all this fake dirt as it went along.

I’m sick of tractors, thanks; I certainly don’t think I want to write a story on them.

“Use what you find as the stimulus material for your story; have fun, kids.” Mrs Spinner finishes, before taking a huge yawn and settling herself down on a plush haystack; she’s snoring and out of it within seconds.

Everyone starts to disperse; leaving me the only one standing in the middle of the museum.

It’s just I have no idea where to start, and it’s not because I have so many options – it’s because my options are so limited. There are tractors, as aforementioned, farm equipment and hay as far as the eye can see. I suppose I could make a story out of nothing; but I’m kidding myself if I claim anything I see currently grabs my attention as it’s supposed to be doing.

With a sigh I begin to wander around aimlessly, searching for the equivalent of a holy grail in this museum.

I wonder what Lance is doing. I bet he’s glad he’s not in my English class. He’s always complaining that his teacher is a dumbass but what is the use of knowledge if no one listens to you? No one ever listens to Mrs Spinner –

Oh. My God. I’ve found something that hasn’t touched hay once in its miserable life; a diary, hiding behind a knife and an empty jar.

I know. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s a start. It’s got to be better than writing about tractors and horses and cows and the bush. Maybe the person who wrote the diary is a spy, or maybe they had near figured out the cure to cancer. It’s got to be something extraordinary to be put in a museum…

Or maybe it’s just some farmer’s wife’s diary; I guess I’ll never know if I don’t take a look at it.

I head for the diary, arms swinging at my sides. It doesn’t look like a farmer’s wife’s diary. It’s all pale pink, and there’s fading fuchsia hearts painted all over it. It looks like a younger girl’s diary, maybe someone my age.

Stopping in front of the table it’s propped up on, I pick it up; only to have someone grab it at the same time as I do.

I find myself face to face with Tobias Knight in all of his holey jeaned, tanned skin and amber eyed glory. Around his neck is a piece of string adorned with a shark tooth, and rumour has it he ripped it right from the mouth of one during his surfing escapades…

I don’t believe it. My personal belief is that a shark would sooner rip his tooth out than he rip its – the shark would also bite a chunk out of his face for bonus points. Could Tobias do that? I think not. Proof of sharks being more awe-inspiring than he is; proof that he is not the coolest of cool – despite his very high opinion of himself.

I’ve added him on face book; I know him. He’s always posting pictures of himself with his shirt off and then blowing off girls’ offers for dates. Judging by behaviour of other males his age – especially when said girls are sending him pictures with their boobs near out of their shirts – this is considered abnormal.

My theory is the guy is gay, despite the fact that Meghan chick is always hanging around, doting after him – everyone else thinks she’s his girlfriend but I just think she’s his cover.

I’ve never seen them kiss once, or display any other form of public affection. Not even an arm around the waist, or a hand holding. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen him hold any girl’s hand at all apart from his little sister’s. It’s completely mental. I know I’m a biological freak when it comes to social interaction and relationships but…

Consider this; I’m generally bigger than most of the girls at my school – I don’t mean big, but bigger (it is not my fault if the girls that occupy my school fall into the underweight category) – I do not engage in partying of any kind, I don’t wear make-up and whenever anyone tries to talk to me…I pretty much scare them away with my honesty.

Most people call it being ‘rude’. But hell, isn’t honesty supposed to be the best policy? Talk about contradicting moral values.

But when there’s me, there’s him; all six foot two of him pure, unadulterated perfection. Not a blemish, not a hair of his shoulder length, blonde surfer hair out of place unless it’s on purpose – and his body is lithe and muscular from all that surfing. He definitely parties, he most likely drinks at said parties – his friends all hang around and compliment him like he’s some kind of God. But despite all of this it looks like he’s never laid hand on a girl in his life.

If you think he’s the definition of normal – tell me now; because I sure don’t.

“Uh, earth to Sophia? I said do you want to share this – I’ve had it up to,” oh he’s talking, and motioning above his head with a hand, “here with all this tractor crap.”

He remembered my name. Tobias – pronounced Toe-by-us – has five hundred friends on face book. Out of all of them, he still remembers my name.

Either that or he’s been paying attention while teachers call out the roll but I doubt it.

“Hello, can you hear me? Are you deaf? I mean, I can sign a little but ‘eff you’ and ‘up yours’ wouldn’t exactly get the message across.” Tobias says, raising his eyebrows up at me. I blink; he moves his arms and hands around a lot when he’s speaking. It’s like watching a really badly choreographed theatre performance. “Seriously, speak to me; I don’t even think I know what you sound like.”

“Fine,” I say, shrugging, “it’s not like I own the diary; I can’t tell you whether or not you’re allowed to write a story.”

“Well,” he says, his eyebrows raising even higher, “it’s something called ‘being polite’ but seeing as your social interactions are very limited from what I’ve observed I can hardly hold your being misinformed against you.”

“Ouch, you cut me deep Knight,” I snort, finding myself raising my own eyebrows, “but being polite is omission – it’s hiding what you think about someone with smiles and carefully calculated sentences. I’m not going to deceive anybody by pretending I like them when I don’t even know them.”

“But that’s a contradiction on your behalf because instead of acting like you like someone you immediately mistrust them and act like you dislike them,” He counters, lifting up a finger and pointing at me, “that’s omission.”

“Oh, well that’s a little arrogant; I never said I liked you.” I protest, crossing my arms over my chest.

“You seem to be very against omission and you implied you don’t judge people before you get to know them – you don’t know me, therefore you can’t dislike me.” He says, a grin starting to form on his face; he finds it funny he’s beating me at an argument –

Or thinks he’s beating me at an argument because he most certainly isn’t. No way am I going to lose to that surf-board obsessed, omitting, arrogant and overall annoying individual. Especially when the grin he’s directing at me is more akin to a smirk than a genuine smile. I knew face book was right about him; face book never lies.

“Who says I don’t know you? I’m Tobias and I travel down to the beach which is two hours away every single weekend to play with the waves and drink alcamahol.” I deepen my voice, waving my arms around as true to his nature. “See, I don’t just know you – I know you well.”

Instead of being annoyed at my presumptions as any normal person would be he actually starts laughing at me right in the middle of my imitation. He doesn’t stop after it, either. It’s actually starting to hurt my ears, he laughs that loud. Wrinkling my nose I’m about to bring it up when he stops laughing and abruptly reaches out, dropping his side of the book and planting his hands on my shoulders. I go rigid, leaning away from him.

He smirks even wider at this, “Honey, if you’re counting what I write on face book as valuable evidence of what I’m like as a person that means I know you too; we are friends on there, aren’t we?”

Shoving his hands off of my shoulders I frown at him, “I never even post anything on there.”

“But your friends do,” he informs me, crossing his arms over his chest again, “I’m Sophia and I like to stalk people and eat sweets and read weird non-fiction books all of the time.”

“I do not like to stalk people.” I feel inclined to point out, feeling a pang of irritation. “I just like to observe them.”

“And I don’t drink, so…face book can be a little misleading, huh?” Tobias challenges, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Take the book,” I shove it into his hands, “just go away.”

“Oh, is somebody bitter? I promise I’ll let you win next time around.” He coos patronisingly, his eyes sparkling down at me.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come to mind he’s got me that irritated. It’s like when I’m sitting in the library, trying to do my work, when a bunch of year sevens come in and start hooting next to me. I feel like clocking them over the head but I can’t because their teacher is generally about five metres away, strangely okay with their behaviour.

I can’t clock Tobias over the head either, because then I’ll lose any chance of him ever leaving me alone after this conversation. I don’t see him to be the type to be scared off by female violence; in fact by the looks of those abs in his face book pictures he’d barely feel it.

Now he’s making faces at me…

Oh God he’s annoying. Maybe he isn’t gay, maybe he does go out with those girls – just instead of showing them a good time he annoys the crap out of them and by the time the date is over…they have realised their mistake and never, ever go out with him again.

I shake my head at him, snapping myself from my thoughts and glaring into his amber eyes, “This isn’t a competition.”

“Oh, sure, says the one who’s losing.” He teases, poking me in the shoulder.

“You’re really immature,” I tell him, raising my eyebrows up high and putting my hands on my hips, “and I’ve decided; I don’t like you.”

“Well you’re just fun to screw with, and you’re only saying you dislike me because you don’t know how to handle it and,” he grins at me, his dimples showing, “I’ve decided; I do like you.”

“You,” I splutter, staring at him like he’s insane – a likely possibility, given all the girls he’s rejected and how he’s saying he likes me despite the fact I’ve not said one kind word to him, “are deluded, now I need to go to the bathroom.”

I turn on my heel quick as I can to get away from him; it’s not that I can’t handle him, it’s just that I prefer not to spend my time having pointless arguments when I can be doing something constructive; such as finding something else for my creative writing project since he’s so cleverly tricked me out of doing it.

I bet that was his goal right from the start.

“Oh no, she’s lying again,” he calls after me, “oh the humanity, oh the hypocrisy.”

I turn my head, narrowing my eyes at him, “I do need to go to the bathroom, to get away from you –” he interrupts me with a snort and an eye roll.

Biting my lip I turn my head resolutely; I will not look back again, I will not look back again, I will not look back again, I will not look back again, I will not look back again…

But I do; and he’s laughing, like muahahaha, at me, winking when he catches my eye.

Snorting with derision, I turn my head for the last time, heading towards the bathroom and taking deep breaths; what an annoying guy.

I rub my eyes, staring at the screen and trying not to let my eyelids droop down again; I need to get this project done for history class. It’s due on Monday, and I really don’t like working on things on weekends. If some gets down now – and then I do the rest tomorrow night; I’ll have the weekend completely free…

This infallible truth however isn’t enough to spur me on; I’m a major procrastinator. If it’s something I’m meant to be doing I’m always doing something completely different – even if that something I’m meant to be doing is something I actually like.

Which it is; I really like history. I want to be a history teacher when I grow up. I record every documentary about the past, present and future onto my DVD hard drive – then after editing all the ads out of them, copy them onto a DVD.

I’ve watched every one I have over and over again; it’s what I was doing for the longer part of tonight instead of my project – but now I’ve really got to get to work…

It’s just I’m so tired. Isn’t it better to do school work when you’re completely awake? When you’re sleepy it’s so much more likely you’ll make mistakes. I hate making mistakes. I’d rather fail to hand the project in than hand in something crappy. And who nows? Maybe she’ll give me another extension –

No, no. I will get it done by waking up really early tomorrow morning and doing the work I could be doing now, then. I’ll just grab a big cup of coffee, some coco pops and then I’ll get right into the project doing.

Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.

Shutting down my computer in a couple of clicks and saving – pointlessly – the empty page of my history project, I let out a tired yawn; I don’t know how I do it but whenever I have more time I seem to get less done. The other day I had an info project due in and I got it done in about an hour even though we had visitors.

Today I had nothing to do aside from said history project; but not a word is on the page.

Pulling off my clothes and tossing them to the floor, I turn my eyes to my mess of a wardrobe. Clothes are everywhere, and the only time it ever gets clean is when my mum gets extremely fed up and cleans it herself. I’m not even sure I have a section for my pyjamas anymore…but I think I spot a nightie.

Grabbing the item from my wardrobe I tug, causing a whole lot of clothes that weren’t meant to come out to topple all over the floor. I’m too tired, too cool, to care. I just want to get some sleep – for some reason today I’m feeling especially tired.

Pulling the nightie over my head I near flop onto my bed, letting my head sink into my pillow and pulling the covers up to my chin.

Ah, sleep; I love sleep.

My eyes blink open, and I sit up on my bed; only it’s different. Hanging over me is a filmy white canopy, and my bed’s covers are of purest white. Last I checked my covers were fluoro green and my pillow was orange – not baby pink with little red roses printed all over it. I don’t know where I am but it’s definitely not where I fell asleep.

Then it hits me; I’m dreaming. It’s just a dream.

Jumping to my feet, I spot a balcony entrance over to the right of my bed; sun is partially streaming through the French doors, but not as much as the windows at the very right end of the room.

I walk over, pushing through the unlocked doors; just as I’m doing this someone is doing the very same thing; walking onto the balcony opposite mine, running a hand through his hair in confusion…

It can’t be who I think it is. A lot of people are tall and have blonde hair. A lot of people, I’m sure, have shark tooth necklaces. A lot of people – damn it!

Tobias Knight looks up, his eyes catching mine and his eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Oh crap,” I groan, “now I’m dreaming about you.”

Authors Note: Hey guys thees ees my NaNo story! I shall be updating it regularly...hopefully that makes up for all the lies about my updating Bam soon. I really WAS planning on updating it soon but then I had to figure out stuff for this and attempted to write a halloween one shot...which was pissing me off, frankly; so I didn't finish it. It's a little lame posting halloween stories after halloween so...

I WILL UPDATE BAM AS SOON AS I CAN. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed and will continue to enjoy this.