• Chapter 1
    Around The Corner
    It started out like any other day. The sound static on my old radio clock woke me up, for I can never find a good station. I dragged myself out of my oversized bed, dug a clean pair of clothes out of my dresser, and put them on. After that, I acted as if it were any other morning. As far as I knew, it was. There was no way that I could’ve known that that day would be the start of something that was far from ordinary.
    “Do I have enough money for lunch?” I wondered. “I better check.” So I walked over to my oak dresser, grabbed my wallet, and opened it up. The first thing I saw was my honor card. My name, Mathew Martin was on it. Everyone calls me Matt, though. Also, there was my picture. I have brown hair and I’m fairly tall, about 5’11. My blue eyes stared back at me from behind my oval glasses. I looked into the biggest pocket and saw a five-dollar bill.
    “Just enough,” I said with relief. “I really got to stop talking to myself,” I said. I stepped over the random mess in my room and I headed into the kitchen. I cooked up my breakfast, scarfed it down, grabbed my backpack, and walked out the door.
    As I climbed onto my silver Next bike, I took a deep breath and started on my three quarter mile, uphill ride that would take me to school.
    I finally got to Dogwood High, the school in which I’m a freshmen, and rode around to the back of the school. Once there, I locked my bike up to the rusty, old bike rack. Suddenly, I had the eerie feeling I was being watched. I stood up, for I had bent over to lock up my bike. Slowly, I turned around, and I saw something dart around the corner.
    “Hello?” I said nervously. I walked around the brick edge of the school to find myself in an empty parking lot.
    “Wow, that was weird,” I said to myself.
    I hopped up the stairs that led to a back door of the school and slid inside the building. As I walked down the deserted hallway, I pulled my heavy jacket off.
    “Man, this coat is so fricken hot,” I said as I walked into the cafeteria. There were five rows of long tables with about seven tables in each row. Several posters advertising extracurricular activities covered a white brick wall. I looked around and saw my friends sitting at a brown table in the corner. I walked over to them and dropped my stuff onto the table.
    “Hey guys, what’s up?” I asked them rhetorically. My group of friends consisted of Magan, Juan, Julia, and Rob. They are all sophomores, a year older than me. Most of my friends answered to my greeting by mumbling, except Rob.
    “What is up, Matt?” he asked in a happy voice. Rob and I never seemed to fit into this group. I’m not sure why, but we still hang out with them. Juan is Mexican, the only one in our little group, with black hair and brown eyes. I am taller than he is, but I am tall for my age. Magan had brown hair that hung down to her shoulders with a red streak in the front. She was shorter than all of us, only coming up to about my chest. Julia was almost as tall as I was. She had long, brown hair and blue eyes like mine. Rob was the most different. He was taller than all of us, even me, and had blonde hair that hung down in all different directions. He had brown eyes that rested behind rectangle-shaped glasses.
    “Something weird just happened to me,” I said.
    “What happened?” asked Rob with obviously fake interest.
    “When I was hooking up my bike, I saw something,” I said. Everyone else probably thought I was being vague just to stretch out the conversation. I like to talk, did I mention that?
    “What was it?” asked Juan in an annoyed voice. I could tell he wanted to know. An open book sat in front of him. It was called Celtic Magic. Juan was always reading weird stuff like that.
    “I don’t know. It ran off before I could get a good look at it,” I replied.
    “Well, could you tell what it looked like?” Magan asked.
    “This is gonna sound really weird, but it looked kinda like a giant bat,” I said. I saw Magan, Juan, and Julia stiffen. I heard Juan say something that sounded like Camazots.
    “What’s a Camazots?” I asked.
    “Nothing. How big was this bat?” Magan said.
    “What is this, an interrogation?” I asked. Julia, Magan, and Juan looked at me intently. Rob looked around as if he didn’t know what was going on. I knew how he felt. “Okay, okay. I’d say it was about the size of a man,” I said, giving in to their serious looks.
    “Why does it matter how big it was?” asked Rob. My three other friends turned their gazes towards him. “I mean, it’s not like there’s such a thing as a giant bat, right?” he asked. Poor guy, I felt sorry for him.
    “Of course not, that’s just ridiculous,” replied Magan. She didn’t seem so serious all of a sudden. “Hey, Matt. I need you to look into my eyes,” she said to me.
    “Uh, okay,” I said, a little shocked. I have to admit that it was a really weird request. I looked into her brown eyes and started to see my experience behind the school in them. I figured that it was just a trick of the light. Man was I wrong. She turned to Juan and Julia and shook her head. They breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Am I the only one wondering what that was all about?” I asked.
    “Not really,” Rob replied.
    “That was nothing, I was just trying to, uh, freak you out,” said Magan unconvincingly.
    “Okay,” I said. Needless to say, I didn‘t really believe her. Suddenly, a bell rang four times throughout the school.
    “That’s the bell,” Juan said. He seemed to be relieved. Rob and I went down one hall, while Julia, Magan, and Juan went down another.
    “What’s up with them?” I asked Rob.
    “I’m not sure, but it’s freaking me out,” Rob replied.
    “Me too,” I said. “Something weird is about to happen, I can feel it in my gut.”
    “I’m with you there,” Rob said to me. “What do you think we should do?”
    “Let’s just keep our eyes and ears open,” I told him.
    “Sounds good, I’ll see you later,” he replied.
    “Okay,” I said. I walked down the hall and headed to my first hour class, math. I stopped at my locker to get my binder then started my long, boring school day. I couldn’t help but wonder what this Camazots my friends were talking about was. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I did know I wasn’t going to like it.