Chapter One
“Camilla K JONES IF I HAVE TO CALL YOUR NAME ON MORE TIME!” Meme screamed her threat from down the stairs. I shoved my chair backward and scrambled my things into my bag. I grabbed my shoes from next to the door and ran down the stairs nearly landing on Meme.
“That’s more like it,” She commented. Normally I’d protest her rudeness but I didn’t have the time.
“Love you Meme” Rosalie smiled and kissed her on the cheek as she ran out the door. Leave it to Rosalie to be the sweetest. I rolled my eyes and shoved my feet into my converse. They were vintage made in the 2000s, and the most uncomfortable shoes I have.
“Bye Meme” Luca patted her back. She smiled and waved him out of the house.
“I love you, bye” I kissed Meme on the cheek and ran out the door. Her rosy perfume was stuck in my nose and made me want to sneeze. I inhaled the salty morning air as I stepped out into the deck. I stumbled down the stairs of the deck onto the driveway and started to walk to the end of our driveway.
“Hurry up” Ms. Sally the bus driver honked from the end of our driveway. I sprinted onto the bus and walked to the back of the bus to join my siblings.
“You pulled that close,” Rosalie smiled and scooted over so we could share that last seat in the bus.
“Yah! I think you almost gave Meme a heart attack” Luca winked from across the isle. I rolled my eyes at his humor and leaned back into the duct taped seat.
“Whatever”
“Whaddya wanna do?” Luca leaned over so he was practically breathing on me.
“Back up bro” His morning breath was ripe and all over me now. He smiled proud of annoying me. He huffed quickly and pretended to cough sending little droplets of water all over me and Rose.
“EW!” Rosalie pretended to slap him, {I think, but she might have definitely meant it} and he backed up into his seat. Being the first ones on the bus gave us plenty of time to talk and drive our bus driver crazy.
“Luca!” Ms. Sally screamed from the back of the bus. I bit my tongue to stop my laugh from coming out. Rose snorted in the result of trying to contain her laugh. Luca just smirked as the bus pulled over.
“UP HERE!” Ms. Sally pointed to the front seat. Her face was scrunched up like usual. Her hair was mostly grey, and she blamed it on her divorce but she was almost sixty now. Rosalie tried to get Ms. Sally used to use a hair conditioner but she claimed it was made of toxins that she was rubbing into her hair. That was pretty much when the name toxic sally became her nickname.
“Ok, toxic Sally,” Luca murmured under his breath as he skipped to the front of the bus like it was an award. I moved over to the seat he was in so I’d have more room.
“Ooh!” Rosalie pointed to something on her phone that was beaming up from her wrist tattoo. My phone buzzed and an image of fuzzy grey boots appeared as I swiped open my phone from my wrist tattoo.
“No” I shook my head. She made a pouty face and then continued to shop on her phone. Bing. My phone rang.
KATE
How far till my house! Gtg get my lunch ready?!
5 min Kate.
Crap…
Hurry!
Shhh!!!!!!!
I smiled slightly at her. It was nice not being the only one always late. More people were crowding onto the bus making it sticky and hot now that the sun was actually rising. These were the days that I sometimes wished we hadn’t begged Meme to let us take the bus but if we went back on it she’d have fun rubbing it in our faces.
“HI!” Kate squealed as she ran to the back of the bus sitting in the seat in front of me a few minutes later.
“HI!” I smiled and slapped her hand hard enough to make mine kinda sting.
“Doesn’t hurt a bit” She winked and waved her hand around in pain.
“Yah, right” Rosalie shook her head and smiled.
“If there was an award for worst liar ever, it would go to you!” She added.
“What!” Kate pretended to be offended, and slapped her chest. I rolled my eyes and smiled.
“SO… I should take being a spy off of my to do list?” Kate joked and pretended to make a cross on paper with her hands.
“Yah” We all nodded.
“What did Luca get in trouble for this time?” Kate blushed as she asked. I raised my eyebrows and turned to the Rose who was smirking. Ever since this summer Kate had been majorly crushing on Luca. It was kinda funny because Luca really liked her except they were both way too scared to say anything to each other.
“Spitting” Rose replied. Kate made a questioning face but accepted the answer. That was another thing that was annoyed about the two of them. They both thought of each other of angels. We made fun of Luca constantly for his crush on Kate and her being the perfect girl not that there was anything wrong with her. It was Kate who we really made fun off as he best friends, and having Luca as a brother kinda gave us the privilege. We continued talking until the bus pulled into the giant parking lot. This was the second worst thing about the bus, trying to get off.
“GET OFF MY BUS NOW!” Ms. Sally screamed from the front of the bus. Everyone was slowly making their way to the front of the bus. Luca, being Luca, was moving at a snail’s pace down the stairs slowing everyone down and one irritated bus driver.
“LUCA JONES” She hollered even though he was less than three feet away from her. Kate frowned, annoyed with Ms. Sally for treating Luca that way, but I was actually quite fond of how Ms. Sally didn’t care about Luca being rich, though she was still most definitely scared of Meme. Meme, or Eliza Foe Grand, was probably one of the most powerful people in the summit.
After a few more seconds of annoying Ms. Sally, he hopped down the two stairs and started walking towards the school doors.
~~~
The lunch room buzzed with people. I was sitting over next to the windows that ranged all the way up the building. Kate was next to me humming the anthem we were learning in choir. Rosalie was walking over now.
“Hey” She smiled and sat down and opened her glittery lunch bag.
“Hi” I responded robotically.
“What have you been doing?” Kate asked Rose. Me and Kate had all the same classes together meaning we were together all of the time. Rose was with Luca pretty much the entire day which would suck, except when they’re together, all anyone does is stare at them and listen to whatever they say. I think it was because they were the only twins in the country, or because we were rich and Meme made bodyguards be in whatever room we were in school. Both made sense. That or they were both single and somehow always knew what to wear unlike me.
“Not much. I was just in physics” Rose smiled.
“So, Tyler has been staring at Camilla all day long” Kate changed the subject smiling slyly.
“NO” I said too quickly and Rosalie was now staring at me.
“Cam?” She looked at me with her eyes wide open. I tried to shove down the blush in my cheeks but I could feel my cheeks get redder.
“He’s coming over here” Kate added, jabbing me in the stomach with her elbow. I quickly sat up and looked around to see him.
“See” Kate smirked.
“Jerk” I giggled when I saw him sitting across the lunch room.
“Luca is coming over here though” Kate glared at me.
“Yah right” She murmured under her breath, looking around quickly.
“Hi!” Luca sat at the other end of our table. Kate jumped back quickly and then regained her perfect posture and brushed locks of her thick blond hair out of her face.
“Hi” Kate blushed so red I started to giggle. Rose was biting her lips so hard that it turned white.
“What’s so funny” Luca quickly looked at himself over making sure he wasn’t what we were laughing at.
“Nothing” We exclaimed quickly. Luca suddenly got sidetracked by Tyler, Mathew, and Noah. He sprinted over to their table where they were throwing popcorn into the air and trying to catch it in their mouth.
“Idiots” Rose rolled her eyes.
“At least it isn’t pudding today” I sighed. Yesterday they threw pudding cups into the air trying to get as much of it in their mouth before it hit the ground. You can only guess how that went.
“If they come over here with pudding” Kate shook her head quickly.
“What up!” Mathew bellowed and slammed his hand onto the table.
“AH” I screeched. He smirked and winked at me. I rolled my eyes in disgust and ignored him.
“So much for a quiet lunch” Rosalie muttered.
“Luca!” Tyler and Luca body slammed each other and sat down.
“Yo, Mr. Grafin was kicked today” Noah smiled and sat down with them. These were Luca’s best friends and probably some of the most annoying people here, except for Tyler.
“Luca” I didn’t bother to hide the irritation in my voice. Luca was totally going to ruin my reputation of being the good girl with his friends at our table. I could tell Rosalie and Kate felt the same way. Normally they steered clear off us, but no that the year was winding down, and they were all about to be adults in the real world they were becoming more and more uncontrollable.
“I’m too cool, I know” He smirked and started to talk about their field hockey game. I grinded my teeth together so I wouldn’t scream my lungs out at him.
“Maybe we should…”
“Move” Kate finished my sentences and shoved me over, and off the bench as milk went flying into the air.
“*” Rose screeched soaked.
“Uh-oh” They all ran off as Mrs. J walked over.
“My dear, those boys are such an insult to the school, well besides Luca, but my god” she grabbed roses things and followed behind her as she stomped to her locker for a change in clothes.
“Thanks” I mouthed to Kate who was now pulling me behind Rosalie.
“I swear I’m going to attack him!” Rosalie screeched down the hall. Kate, Rose and I have been a trio forever, and only every once in a while does Rose get this mad. Most of the time it has to do with her clothes, like now.
“Ma’am, we are about to do a bomb drill, can… Er… Will Rose be clean in five minutes” Kuby my body guard asked.
“Kuby, I have no clue” I responded quickly catching up to Rose and Kate. Kate was whispering something to Rose who unjustly didn’t seem mad anymore.
We walked out of the bathroom as the bomb drill alarm went off. Kate’s bodyguard was with ours ushering us into the basement, and then from their two more flights down the stairs.
We did drills like this often because of the wars between the African republic and Canada Nation. Every once in a while a plane from one or the other country would fly over leaving us in the open for anything to happen to us. Once we were down three floors and in our bunker we spread out. Kate pulled some cards out from the shelf in the corner of our private room and dealt them out for us and our body guards. After three rounds of go fish, Kate’s favorite signal went off that we could go up.
~~~
“As we all know in 2054 Canada Nation was formed, taking over what was Iceland and Greenland. In 2056, Camilla what happened” Mr.Cadiget asked.
“We became Anthala, and joined power with The United Nations, becoming the strongest country in the world. That was the same year California State became an island due to the earthquakes” I responded without my notes.
“And Miss. Knickot what happened in 2057” Mr.Cadiget looked at Kate.
“We made a deal with the Canada Nation that is at the moment frozen because they are battling African Republic in which we have allies” She responded nervously biting her lips.
“Correct” Mr.Cadiget exclaimed. Kate sighed quickly and returned her attention to him.
“In 2059 we created the Forbid. It was a way that we could see if anyone held great knowledge that we could use to our advantages if we were pulled into the war. As we know, we were in war for a brief period of time.”
“Remember everyone, the forbid is coming up, so make sure you are getting yourself prepared. You need to do well” Mr.Cadiget reminded us on the stupid test as we walked out of his room. I rolled my eyes and marched down the stairs to the bus. Meme thought the bus was a terrible thing because no body guard could protect us. I enjoyed it because it was a break.
~~~
“How was school my little angels?” Meme kissed each one of us on the cheek as we plopped onto the couch in the living room.
“It was fine,” Rosalie replied, gritting her teeth for a second and glaring at Luca in the same action. But she was pretty much completely distracted by her phone which was less than three inches away from her face.
“Rosalie Jones” Meme swiped her phone down into the tattoo on her arm and looked at Luca and me for a more promising answer.
“We have to take the forbid in the next few weeks but other than that, Rose summed it up pretty well.” Luca grinned.
“Blah! Camilla tell me something decent!” Meme whined from across the room.
“Luca likes…” Luca covered my mouth with his hand and his face went pink.
“Please” Luca mouthed to us. Rosalie smiled devilishly.
“Ka..” Luca jumped across the room trying to cover her mouth too but failed.
“te”I ended the name.
“Kate? Like the one I know” Meme smiled. Luca frowned and sat on the couch glaring at us.
“Your fault” I mouthed to him.
“Yup” I giggled. Luca made a deal with us that as long as he didn’t talk about the forbid and we didn’t have to get the shot we’d keep the secret but Luca failed badly completely forgetting about it.
“Luca?!” Meme looked at him with wide eyes. Even though Meme was a grandma, she was a pretty good mother when it came to talking about crushes.
“You know you should say something to her” Meme pushed and looked at Luca trying to fit every piece of information she had on both of them together. This was what she did. She went through everything she knew about the person we had a rush on and then came up with reasons why we had to do something.
Last time Luca told Meme his crush she called a class party and had them do every activity together until they kissed. It was pretty memorable and honestly kinda awful for Luca.
“Will talk later. Forbid?” She looked at us. I cringed backwards into the cushioned seat.
“Nope” Rosalie refused. She had already made this clear a year ago, but now there was pretty much no more time before she had to take it. I still had a year or two but that wasn’t as much time as I wanted. At Least I didn’t have three weeks like Rose and Luca.
The forbid was a test to see your intelligence and basically you got scored and ranked. Meme was one of the first people to take it and got an exceeding score on it. That was one of the reasons we were rich. Our mom took it and got an average score, and our dad did too. They died seven years ago, we think. Their car exploded but it was nothing by the time first responders got there and there were no bodies in it. After that they never came home. Dead.’
Our mom had been a scientist in the forbid and apparently found something out about it. Meme won’t say anything but we all silently agree that the car exploding was no accident and was completely meant to happen. Over the years many accidents happened like this.
“I agree, no way in hell am I taking the test” Luca glared at Meme whose lips were in a firm line.
“You are!” Meme looked at us with sad confident eyes.
“No” Rosalie and Luca said at the same time.
“Camilla, please talk some sense into your stupid siblings” Meme looked at me with pleading eyes. The eyes that made me want to give her a hug. The same eyes that she gave us and when she knew her daughter wasn’t coming home. She knew that most of the time I’d fold when she looked at me like that.
“No” I stood up trying to stay firmly with my siblings and walked out of the room, rushing up the stairs into my bedroom. I showed the door open and slammed it shut, locking it. There was a book shelf across the north wall. My bed was made in piles of fuzzy purple and blue blankets and giant white pillows on the south wall. A giant window ranging pretty much the entire east wall looked on to the ocean. Giant dark blue curtains hung over the window swaying through the breeze that was coming through the windows.
I walked over and collapsed onto my bed under the canopy of light grey translucent cloth that hung over it connected to giant poles at the ends of my bed. There were little sequins that were sparkling in the canopy.
“Can I come in” Rosalie knocked slightly on the door. I rolled to face the door.
“Fine” I moaned and got up to open the door.
“Me too” Luca thudded toward the door.
“Whatever” I swung the door open letting them come in.
“Don’t you just love us” Luca grinned and jumped onto my bed.
“Having two older twins is the worst” I joked and locked the door before jumping back onto my bed. Even though Luca and Rose were twins, we could pass for triplets. We all had the same dirty blond hair and hazel eyes, but Rosalie’s were slightly more green. Our faces were pretty much in the same identical shape. We were all tall, but Luca was the tallest, and we all had an athletic build and skinny feet. We had longer arms, but they looked normal with our height. Rosalie’s hair was slightly longer than mine but mine was less frizzy than hers normally was. We both had our hair in dutch braids down our backs.
“I think having a twin is the worst,” Rosalie smiled.
“We’re going to get the forbid tonight,” Luca blurted.
“What!” I screeched.
“I’m not,” Rosalie stated. I was eight when my parents passed away and even though I remember them, everything was kind of a blur. Luca just moved on even though he cries every now and then. But Rose was hurt the worst. She thinks that the forbid ruined our family, and it kinda did.
“But if you don’t take it you’ll be homeless” I interjected. Seeing Rosalie on the street wasn’t exactly fitting into my picture of her.
“Rather that then be dead.” She added.
“Luca?” I looked at him. He raised his eyebrow and looked at Rose.
“I’m taking it. Mom thought something was wrong with it, so do I. But I..” He trailed off. Something about him was oddly serious.
“But…” I stuttered.
“You should probably get dressed for it” Luca stood up and left, leaving the door open. Rose looked at me with sorrowful eyes.
“I’m sorry we have to leave you in the middle” she closed the door on her way out. I didn’t know whether to scream at them or cry for myself. Everything just majorly escalated. Homeless people were barely given any food and completely left out of the picture of any family they came from. Rosalie couldn’t live with that, I couldn’t. Then Luca was going to basically hand everything about himself over to the Summit.
“Glow, turn on music” I murmured and tried to stop any tears from coming out of my eyes. The computer turned on the music as I rushed around the room getting into something that would be good for a public appearance.
I looked myself over in the mirror. The navy blue dress went all the way to just before my ankles. The back of the dress was cut open to just before my waist. The silver diamond heels I wore with it mde it hard to balance but match enough. I blotched on some silvery makeup and grabbed a small hand bag for myself. My hair was in piles of curls, but slightly out of the way to the giant diamond hupes Meme liked on me would be seen.
I knelt down next to my bed quickly and ran my finger under my bed until it hit my small box. I pulled it out and took the key form around my neck off, unlocking it quickly. There was a layer of dust on it, but everything was still there. I grabbed all of the notes from under the secret compartment in it. I shoved them into the handbag I had along with a few jewels from my jewelry box.
I opened my door quickly and ran over to Rose’s room.
“Can I come in” I knocked softly on her door.
“Sure” She whispered from her room. She was in the same dress as me. Another thing Meme had given us. I put my hand bag on her bed, dumping the contents on it.
“If you aren’t going to take the forbid, you should have these” I blinked back the tears.
“Promise to meet me in the cove soon.” I asked.
“I love you Cam” She hugged me and I hugged her for a few moments. It bothered me that she couldn’t just say I promise.
“Please promise,” I asked.
“We have to go” She tugged me through her door after and slipped the contents of my bag into her thanking me again. I was carrying one of the bags she had full of clothes and I don’t know what else down the stairs. I felt like screaming at Rose, but Meme still thought Rose taking the test I think because Meme was overly ecstatic.
“I can’t promise but I can try,” Rose whispered and grabbed my hand as we pulled into the forbid parking lot. The building was four stories tall, but only had two stories, completely made out of concrete except for the west wall that was made entirely out of glass. I had giant arching trees and beautiful flowers all over the main entrance. We got out of the car entering through a giant arch.
The room was humming with excitement and constant chatter that all paused as we entered. It made me uncomfortable as people stared and quickly looked away just to stare right at us again.
Science Fiction
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I
LOVE
This
STORY!
It is realistic, entertaining, detailed, and we can relate to your characters so very well! I can easily see myself on this school bus, then going through history class with Mr. Cadiget, and worrying about ‘forbid’ exams! It’s like a more sensible and personable Hunger Games!
Now for the criticisms: Use an editor! Get through the spelling and grammar errors (that we all make), and polish the story up. Don’t add anything, don’t take anything away. Just keep us inside Camilla’s head, and take us along for a ride in her world!