To many vampires, those early years are as inconsequential and insignificant as the humans they resemble during that time. But some parents do see value in the experience a young vampire has before their fangs descend. It is for this reason the Lord and Lady Turgenev had allowed ten-year-old Anastasia to choose where their family would live for the next decade before her awakening.

They gave her a map of North America, explaining that crossing oceans wasn't on the table right now due to strict regulations set by their society. Anastasia first set her sights on "the happiest place on earth" in one of the sunniest states knowing that her days in the sun were numbered. They shot down that idea. They were willing to leave their isolated cold paradise in Alaska for her, but there are some things vampires will not do.

After some thought she settled on Portland, Maine. She was intrigued by the city's seal depicting a phoenix rising from the ashes. It was a reference to the recoveries from four tragic fires in the city. But to Anastasia it will signify her transformation, her rebirth.

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Anastasia's first day of school came. She stood at the front of Mrs. O'Bryan's 5th grade class nervously picking at her apricot dress. The woman wanted her to tell the class three things about herself. They stared.

She closed her eyes taking a deep breath. They are only humans. No need to be nervous. You're above this, she internally chastised herself. She found her voice whilst her fingers continued twisting the soft fabric of her skirt.

"My name is Ana-stats-see-uh," she said, correcting the teacher's mispronunciation of her name. "I enjoy reading dystopian books and I keep a diary, but I will only write when there is something worth noting. My favorite season is-- "

Anastasia's words were cut short by the outburst of abrupt laughter. She met the deep emerald eyes of a boy with medium tan skin in the back corner. He had a hand covering his mouth hiding his amusement, his mocking gaze burning a hole in her stomach. His pale, lanky friend beside him had his whole face buried in the curve of his arms on his desk, his shoulders barely containing his chuckles.

She almost lowered her gaze feeling her face heating up but remembered herself. Instead, her fingers halted their timorous dance. "Winter," she finished her introduction lifting her chin whilst maintaining the eye contact with the impertinent human. He mimicked her challenge, his narrowing eyes setting off a nervous flutter in her gut.

The staring contest was short-lived as the girl was forced to forfeit when the teacher asked her to take a seat. Taking her new assigned seat, she began to lay out her composition book and pencils when she felt a light tap on her arm. A pudgy girl with a fusion of freckles on her face and flaming red hair whispered to her, "I really like your name. It's pretty."

"Thank you..."

"Pam."

"Pam..."

"It's short for Pamela. Can I call you Ana?"

If she likes my name, why change it?

Anastasia preferred either her full name or the diminutive her father and brother called her, Nastia. Allowing just anyone to address her with such informality was out of the question. She gave Pam permission to shorten her name to Ana reasoning that the human girl won't have much occasion to use it anyway.

But for the rest of the day, Pam was stuck to the new girl's side. Anastasia kept her remarks short and to the point. She had no use for friends she'd forget after taking her rightful place in the vampire society.

Pam, on the other hand, talked a lot. She had two younger brothers, but she wished for a sister and her parents were separated. She didn't mind this because they fought a lot when they were together, and she got two Christmases now. She refused to believe Santa wasn't real. She swears she saw him. She asked where Anastasia was from? She thought everyone in Alaska rode dog sleds. She was a bit disappointed this was not true. She kept a diary too and thought 'Ana' was so cool and brave to admit it to the class.

If Pam had any friends, they didn't seem to miss her.

Two weeks later, Pam was still trailing after her. Almost as soon as Anastasia stepped off her morning bus, the freckled human was right there.

Today she wore a hot pink and black plaid shirt under a hot pink, short-sleeve shirt that had a cheetah print flower on it and said "Gurl Power" in script. Her blue jeans were decorated with pastel colored flower designs. It was an atrocious ensemble.

Anastasia smoothed down her wavy strawberry blonde hair that was held back with a navy-blue headband. She wore a stylish navy blouse with a two-toned floral design and a navy-blue ruffled skirt with white leggings and matching boots.

"I love your outfit!" Pam squealed.

"Thanks," Anastasia said. She felt compelled to give back the compliment, but she prided herself on not being a liar. Pam moved on without seeming to expect a return compliment. Anastasia reluctantly admired that.

"Oh! I've got something for you. Hold on." The redhead paused and swung her sparkly purple backpack around to her front so she could dig into it for something. Her puppy-themed binders and folders fell out in the process as did some loose-leaf papers that were sticking out. "Oops."

The kids in the hall stepped around the girls, none of them bothering to stop and help pick up the supplies. Anastasia stood there for a second in indecision before getting down on a knee to help. She pulled a paper from beneath someone's step with annoyance, accidentally ripping Pam's history homework.

The stocky red head girl at once forgave Anastasia before an apology could even be offered. She then handed her a colorful party invitation. "Thanks for helping me. Here. This is for you! My birthday isn't until next week, but my party is this Saturday. I hope you can make it! It'll be at Mr. Gator's!"

"Okay," Anastasia said as she took the visually striking card. After a moment of silence, Pam realized that was all the pretty girl was going to offer in lieu of a response.

"When is your birthday, Ana?"

"October 23rd."

"Oh, it's already passed."

"Indeed," the vampire sighed, her patience stretched. "We moved on shortly after."

"I'm sorry. Did you get to have a party?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Didn't want one."

They reached the classroom ending the conversation. As they hung up their coats and backpacks on the hooks, a few other girls passed by. Pam grabbed the attention of Shelby Madison, the resident popular girl of the class, who took the offered invitation. "What's this?"

"An invitation to my birthday party. I'm inviting everybody in the class. It's going to be so much fun. My parents are buying lots of game tokens for everyone."

"I don't like pizza," Shelby grimaced as her minions giggled behind her.

The vampire, overhearing this, rolled her eyes, certain she saw Shelby eat pizza last Friday at lunch. Pam went on sweetly and apologetically, either oblivious to the fact she was being ridiculed or purposefully ignoring it, "Oh, sorry. I didn't know. But there will be cake and ice cream, too! I hope you can make it."

"Yeah. Okay. We'll be there."

Pam almost squealed with delight as the girls walked away, not even bothering to properly end the conversation. Pam gave an invitation to everyone in the class, even the boys. Anastasia noticed that for the boys, Pam just simply put the invites on their desks. All except one. AJ Reed. The boy with the green, mocking eyes. She handed him the card directly and stuttered out her invitation.

The boy took no notice of this act of bravery. He merely shrugged and muttered an 'okay' with a look on his face like he was weirded out as he looked back at his friends. They all snickered as Pam walked back to her desk tomato-and-egg faced.

When AJ caught Anastasia still watching him, he smirked and gave a courtesy nod. "Morning, Anastasia." To his credit, he pronounced it right, but he held on to the correct syllables in a posh way that had all the other class clowns chortling. She passed by him to her desk as if he wasn't there at all, refusing to acknowledge his mockery.

People like Shelby and AJ thought they were so special when they were just as expendable as the rest of them. Nastia couldn't understand why the other kids flocked to them. Mother says humans have a need to be dominated; In other words, they need to feel useful, so they are in turn used.

Later during PE, they had been playing kickball outside taking advantage of good weather before winter came. The little vampire usually didn't try in gym class. But today, AJ and his team were being extra obnoxious. He was quite good at sports, leading his team nine to zilch. Anastasia and Pam's team have not managed to capture a single base.

On Pam's turn to kick, she only managed to kick air when he rolled it to her. After a couple more misses, both teams were grumbling. AJ asked, "You do know the goal is to actually kick the ball, right?"

Their classmates added to his taunting, even some on her own team.

"Come on! Kick the ball already!"

"We should start counting 'strikes'!"

"Can someone kick for her?"

The gym teacher agreed with the last statement. She told Pam to pick someone. Pam looked behind her pleadingly at Anastasia who was next in line. The blonde reluctantly stepped forward and AJ grinned. He rolled the ball and Anastasia kicked it low towards third base so Pam would have a good shot at making it to first. But AJ had maneuvered quickly and was able to scoop it up. He even took time to look over at Anastasia and smirk as Pam ran as fast as she could. Unfortunately, she was one of the slowest runners.

For a moment, Anastasia thought AJ was going to let the struggling ginger make it. What is one base when their team is winning by so much? She was almost impressed by the show of gallantry. All the courteous feelings she started to feel for AJ Reed were replaced with an irrefutable distaste as he broke off the eye contact and hit Pam just when she might have been safe.

"Two outs! One to go!" His team hollered giving him high fives as Pam returned to the line of kickers deflated.

With a new sense of determination, Anastasia stepped up to take her turn. She didn't usually try very hard, but she was willing to make an exception today. And it was worth it to see AJ's eyes widen as the ball punched him in the gut with great force. He went down on the ground, but her victory was short lived when he got back up with his arms cradling the ball to his mid-section.

His team whooped and hollered like chimpanzees, but he didn't seem to share their merriment this time. He was narrowing his emerald gems at her. She smirked, him and her both knowing she had left a bruise.

The next day, Anastasia stared dubious at the beaded piece of jewelry on her desk. There didn't seem to be a pattern to the colors on the DIY craft bracelet. The black and white beads that had letters on them spelled out "ANA & PAM", then after a rose bead and a 4-leaf clover bead, the beads spelled out "BFF".

That's a bit presumptuous.

"Do you like it?" Pam asked, bouncing on her heels.

"You made this for me... Why?"

"It is for your birthday, silly."

"No. My birthday isn't until next year."

"I know but since I missed it.... Do you like it? I put in all your favorite colors."

Anastasia examined it again. It did have red, purple, green, dark blue and orange. They were her favorite colors she had told Pam after her relentless questions on the first few days of school. She told her that she couldn't possibly choose a favorite color. There were too many that she liked. When Pam hadn't taken that as an answer, Anastasia had listed her top five. But she liked them separately. The colors didn't go together; it looked tacky.

Pam went on to say, "I saw it yesterday at the store and asked my mom to get it. I chose the rose flower cause you're so pretty and the four-leaf clover cause I'm so lucky to know you."

With a sigh of resignation, Anastasia put on the bracelet thinking she would wear it just for today to be nice. "Thank you, Pam."

"You're welcome."

During music as the vampire put away her recorder, Shelby took notice of the bracelet decorating her wrist. "Wow, that's cute."

"Pam made it for me," Nastia answered the unspoken question.

"Yeah, she did stuff like that for me last year. I threw mine away. Told her I lost it. I know that sounds mean but she was being super annoying. She even started copying what I got at lunch."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you should be careful. She is kind of weird. Just thought you should know since you're still kind of new. If you want, you can sit with me and my friends at lunch."

"Thanks." But no thanks.

Anastasia opted to eat lunch with Pam as usual. Simply for the fact Pam knew the drill. She accepted the other girl's short answers and long silences. Shelby's group wouldn't, not without some training. Still, Anastasia couldn't help noticing Pam also got the burger, fries, applesauce, fruit cup, and strawberry milk. Didn't she used to get chocolate?

At recess, Pam and Anastasia waited for someone to relinquish a swing. Swinging was really the only activity Anastasia liked doing at recess. And Pam did whatever Anastasia wanted to do. This didn't really bother her before, but with what Shelby said....

The vampire walked away from the swings towards where kids from their class were congregating to play dodgeball.

"What are we doing?" Pam asked, trailing after her like a lost puppy.

"Those kids are taking too long."

"You don't feel like stopping them and making a third grader cry today?" Pam giggled.

Anastasia smiled, then stepped up to AJ and his best friend, Jason, who functioned as captains. "Hey! We want to join."

"Really?" Jason asked incredulous.

AJ's lips tilted upward. "Sure. It's always fun with more people. You can pick first, Jace."

Jason looked at his friend confused, then picked the obvious choice. "Okay. Ana."

Pam stuttered, "W-wait. We're not going to be on the same team?"

"No," AJ answered. "Teams are already picked. Gotta keep it even. You're on my team, Pam. Vamos."

Anastasia took her place with Jason's team. The game began and as the balls flew, she wondered why she was doing this. To see if Pam would play despite her own dislike for sports? Throughout the game, Anastasia easily dodged the darting balls with ease, but AJ's team was winning.

Pam was still in, too. AJ was sticking close to her and catching the balls that tried to hit her, attributing to many of their outs.

Jason yelled at Ana to pick up a ball. She realized she, Jason and a petite boy named Michael were the only ones left standing on her team. They had accumulated all five balls on their side. The boys each held two.

She picked up the remaining purple one.

"Let's all aim at Pam. AJ can't catch them all," Jason said.

She rolled her eyes. Could he have said their strategy any louder?

Michael threw one of his towards Pam. Jason threw both of his at the same time. AJ caught Michael's throw easily and used that ball to bounce the one ball of Jason's that was on target. Jason's other ball went askew; evidently, he's not able to aim and throw both simultaneously. After seeing AJ catch Michael's, Anastasia decided to hit another of their players in the leg while they were distracted with that failed plan.

"You should have thrown both of your balls, Michael! Not wait for your first throw to get caught!" Jason scolded as he took Michael's remaining ball. "Don't risk catching them, Ana. Just dodge."

But the balls came flying and Jason was out, leaving Anastasia alone against three on the opposite side. She had all the balls though.

I suck at throwing. If they catch the ball, then game over... and I lose to AJ Freakin' Reed... but I can control the pace of the game.

She decided that her best chance of winning was to throw away the balls and hope to dodge and catch a ball thereby bringing back a good thrower on her team. But she will only give them one ball at a time to use against her.

Putting her plan in action, she rolled just one of the balls to the other team.

"Throw the others over," AJ said, his eyes narrowing as if he was reading her mind.

"No. You guys can throw that ball though."

"¡no puedes hacer eso! You can't do that!" AJ yelled.

"Just did!"

"You have to throw all of them, estúpida."

"No, I don't. Play the game. And don't call me stupid!"

"You're not playing fair...."

"I'm playing smart. You wouldn't understand that."

He threw the ball at her. It was going so fast; she didn't trust herself to catch it, so she dodged. She rolled another ball over.

"Are you serious? If you're going to do this, you have to try to catch it!"

"No, I don't."

"It's in the rules," he insisted.

Anastasia didn't really know if it was or not. But she figured he didn't either.

"No, it is not," she argued back.

He threw another hard one. She dodged again. The other kids started grumbling.

I have to catch this next one. She rolled another. AJ caught her by surprise, kicking it hard back at her on the roll. She tried to catch it, but it stung her hands.

"And now you're out and lost the game for your team, estúpida."

Jason began arguing that it didn't count since AJ kicked it. Anastasia could barely register their words. She was seeing red. She jumped up, grabbed a ball and shot it as hard as she could at AJ's face, screaming, "I said don't call me stupid!"

AJ held his face as blood leaked through his fingers and onto his shirt. He groaned in pain. "You bitch!"

Authors note: Hi. Thanks for reading. Please dont be afraid to comment and PLEASE vote.
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