Another Excerpt from Eye of the Storm

Again this is Treali Storm speaking. This however is from BEFORE she became a murderer.

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I go to school at Lowskin’s public school. The teachers are okay. Sometimes they are mean and sometimes nice. My cousin Jai goes to school with me. We are in two different grades, though. There are about five hundred students with me in the eighth grade and around the same number with Jai in the seventh grade.

There is this one girl, Kelsy O’Donnell, who is very mean to me. She trips me in the hallways, steals my lunch money, curses me, and spreads rumors about me. Rumors are not very nice, but neither is she. I still want Kelsy to like me. Isn’t it kind of weird? This girl who is just about the nastiest one you could ever meet and I want her to be my friend. Rather, I want to be her friend.

She is the most popular girl in my class. She throws parties a lot and lots of people go. I don’t, not really. But once or twice, I have quietly slipped in through the doors and hung out silently like a shadow or a wallflower. Boys constantly surround Kelsy. They think she is hot. She is tall, blonde, and has a beautiful face. She has a gorgeous house and nice clothes. And she knows just how to act around boys, too. She especially knows what to do with her hands and feet and hips and hair.

Her boyfriend, Michael Peters, has been going out with her for maybe six months. Kelsy cheats on him, though, sometimes even to his face. I wish I could be that brave-not that I would cheat on my boyfriend, though, if I had one. Michael doesn’t seem to mind. Probably because he is lucky to have for his girlfriend the most demanded girl in the eighth grade. But if I was someone’s girlfriend and they cheated on me in front of my eyes, I would not take it.

I don’t have a boyfriend. Nobody has ever liked me. Sometimes, I wonder maybe if I am invisible. I have had a couple of crushes but every single subject acts like I don’t exist. And maybe I don’t. And not only am I almost completely anonymous, but I am clumsy a lot. But not forgetful. And my face is rather plain.

I have long black hair, a featureless face, and pale white skin. I am half white, and half Asian. I am very tiny, like the sparrow. I wear the same type of clothes that everyone else wears.

Sometimes when I am alone in my room I make believe that I am popular-like Kelsy. I make believe that I am no longer invisible, but a somebody who people can pick out in a crowd. I make believe that crowds cheer for me like maybe I am a celebrity or a hero or a leader. Someone who has their name in a history book. Someone worth living the life of.

My house is rather small, but spacious inside. All the walls are painted in soft earth tones and the furniture is sparse but comfortable. When you come in through the front door, you step into a small entrance hall that is open to the living room and the kitchen which is half dining room. If you walk into the back of the house, there are two small bedrooms, probably eight by ten inside.

Between the two back bedrooms are the bathroom and a small flight of stairs. If you walk up the stairs, you come into a slightly bigger room, maybe eleven by nine. It has a balcony coming off of it. The balcony is small and there is barely enough room to stand in, but to me, it’s beautiful. You see, that upstairs room is mine.

It is like a safe haven-a castle tower, or a lookout. It is my bird’s nest and I am the sparrow, coming each night to sleep in my secret refuge where I can slip into the world of dreams and escape reality.

There is a small bed along one wall. It is low to the ground, and covered in two layers of the softest wool blankets, one in a soft beige color and the other in a lush brown. Along the opposite wall is a small dresser with two drawers and a lamp on top.

In the center of the room is a large woven straw mat in a natural white color. I lay on my back on that mat a lot. That is where I do my dreaming and thinking and make-believing.

My Aunt Solara has one of the back bedrooms and the other one has my schoolbooks and a desk in it. Aunt Solara is a quiet woman. She is nice, too. Aunt Solara always understands me. When I have a bad day, I can always cry on her shoulder and she will always listen to what I have to say. When I do well on a test I studied hard for, she will congratulate me accordingly.

She has raised me since I was a tiny baby. Honestly, I don’t know what happened to my actual parents, and I never asked her. I think it is maybe because I don’t want to know the truth. There are a lot of rumors. But I don’t mind, since if she was my actual mom (and she acts like one) she would be the ideal mother. Aunt Solara is a very forgiving, compassionate, understanding type of person.

One thing I really like to do is write. Words seem to come from my pen like water from Niagara Falls. But when it comes to speaking, the words come out like poop from the rear end of a constipated cow that is eating while it is going.

I try to tell Aunt Solara how I feel and the words somehow get all messed up and mashed up and somehow confused and misplaced. But she still understands the emotion I am trying to convey.

I would never tell Kelsy how I feel about her-the words would never come out right. Besides, admiring someone who you should hate is probably not a good thing. And what would she think of me? Not much.

But she doesn’t think much of me at all the way I am right now, either.

Sometimes I feel like I should stand up to her bullying so maybe she will think higher of me. But every time, I hold myself back. Some part of me wants it to stay the same. I don’t know why, but I just never talk back to her.

Part of me secretly admires her. She is brave, beautiful, talented, and makes everything she does seem graceful and simple when of course none of it is. She says what she wants to say and gets her point across. She has all the friends she could ever need or want and all the boys around her. She has money, intelligence, and talents.

Kelsy O’Donnell is the epitome of perfection. Her only fault perhaps is her meanness.

I am something entirely different.

When she looks in the mirror, boys faint and girls turn green.

When I look in a mirror, I see nothing at all. Because maybe in the end I am invisible.