Chapter 1

 

Sometimes I just close my eyes and imagine myself somewhere happy. It’s my favourite thing to do – because my life can sometimes be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. 

Decisions make my head spin. Pink or purple? Doctor or writer? Life or death? It’s simple until it’s not.

In my happy place, I have imaginary things. Imaginary people. An imaginary unicorn. An imaginary best friend. Because I don’t have those things in my life.

 

My name is Kateri Tama. I live in the country – which I like to call Middle Of Nowhere. I am 13 years old and live in an average size house, well average enough for three people and my cat, Tiger.  

I live with my Aunt Cynthia and my dad. Aunt Cynthia homeschools me, and is a tutor after school hours. My dad works just outside of our little town, he’s a businessman.

 

Sometimes, in my happy place, I have an imaginary mom. My mother died when I was born. I don’t really miss her, but it’s only because I never knew her. Dad showed me photographs of her a few years ago, but not anymore. I think he threw them out – it was too painful to look at them for him.

So to this day I have trouble remembering her face. But, on those lucky days I close my eyes and see her. I sometimes remember her holding me.

My mother looked a lot like me. She had dark brown thick wavy hair and a curved face. Her eyes are green – just like mine. Bright green, like emeralds shining in the sky.

 

My unicorn was giving me a ride now, her silky mane in my fingers. Soft pink cherry blossom petals fell from the sky, gently falling on us. The grass had a breeze bouncing through it, greener than ever. The breeze slowly undid my long, thick braids. I felt it loosen, but I didn’t mind. Oh how I wished my world was in this place. 

I had to squint to look up at the sky. It started to shift and slowly fall. This is when I knew I was falling out of my happy place.

I open my eyes. Everything snaps to reality. There’s no light bouncy breezy feeling, just me, sitting on my bed. 

I stretch out and flop backwards, onto my pillow. I check the time on my phone, it reads 6:03 PM. The thought of another day in this world made me groan. I stared up at the ceiling. I could smell dinner cooking, the rice and curry. Leftovers probably. 

Until then, I didn’t notice my cat, Tiger, until she meowed loud and long on my bed. I remember the story of that cat. We rescued her, and I remember how rough Tiger looked when we first laid eyes on her. She’s doing much better now.

I named her Tiger because she looks exactly like one; orange, black stripes and pointy ears. 

I yawn too and stare out the window. I see the forest of trees, just in our backyard. It was a gray day, so me and Tiger just spent all day at home.

“Kateri!” Aunt Cynthia’s voice called, following dinner’s smell. “Dinner!”

I lay there for a second still, but then sit up and make my way downstairs. Tiger follows me out the room because she likes to listen up on dinner conversations. 

Dad smiles at me in a ‘hey Kateri!’ kind of way. I then sit down at my usual spot at the dinner table.

Aunt Cynthia’s blond hair was bobbing up and down as she brought the streaming rice and curry to this table.

“Hi Kateri,” dad starts. Looks like I didn’t give him a happy look in response to his smile. 

“How was school?” He asks, like I even went to one. 

“It was fine,” I say in a tiny voice. I could feel Aunt Cynthia’s eyes burning into my head.

“We learned about intervals and graphs in math today,” Anunt Cynthia says, taking a bite of her chicken. “Right Kat?”

I nod. I still don’t understand why adults say ‘we’ as in both of us. I mean she’s the one teaching me. Is it supposed to make me feel better?

Since I wasn’t very talkative, Aunt Cynthia turned to dad. “How late are you staying tomorrow? We need to plan some stuff for … you know.”

I wonder what they’re planning. I wonder if it has anything to do with me.

Still, I didn’t care. I stare down at my plate, shoulders slumped. 

Dad clears his throat. “Oh, yes, I can leave early tomorrow. I can ask Jack to fill in for me …” Then I could’ve swore he looked right at me. 

Big news is coming. 

It’s silent for a few minutes while dad and Aunt Cynthia talk through looks. I really wish they wouldn’t do that. Then Aunt Cynthia finally puts down her fork. 

“Kateri, sweetie, me and your father have been talking about something that you … maybe would like to try.”

“But you totally don’t have to do it if you don’t wa-” dad starts, but Aunt Cynthia gives him a look, probably forcing him to stop talking.

I swallow my food and look up. “What’s that?”

“Well,” I could practically feel Aunt Cynthia’s heart beating. She was nervous. “Since it’s nearing the end of the school year, we were brainstorming that maybe you’d want to go to school next year, in September.”

I choke on my food.

“School?” I almost laugh, drinking water and coughing. 

“Like, first year of high school?”

Aunt Cynthia nodded. She was being serious. “You’ll be starting grade 9”

I sit and think. Real school? Real people? I’ve read books and their high school days … would that be me now?

Aunt Cynthia seemed like she couldn’t take the silence, so she said, “you won’t be the only new kid. It’s a whole new school, and I bet there’s going to be a lot of new students. Especially in your grade, grade 9.”

I nod. “Right. But what will you be doing all day?” 

Aunt Cynthia looked around and thinked. “Oh, you know. Tutoring probably. We’ll work it out.” 

My hands were sweaty just thinking about school. Suppose I hate it? 

There were a million questions I wanted answered. Would I take the bus? Would I have friends? Bullies? Would work be hard?

Dad was silent the whole time, but he spoke up now. “You don’t have to answer right away,” dad said, and reached for my shoulder, seeing my wide eyes. 

“Yeah, no rush Kat,” Aunt Cynthia says softly. 

I blink. My eyes were getting dry. “Okay,” was all I managed to pipe out. 

 

After dinner, I lay on my bed again. Full of food and thoughts. Not thoughts like before dinner, this time they were about school. Real school.

I hear Aunt Cynthia’s voice speaking into her laptop for online tutoring. I rub my eyes with warm palms and then sit up and breath harder.

Tiger stretches and then sashays her way to my lap. 

“What do you think, Tiger?” I whisper into her ear.

I pet her eats, she purrs. Then I hear a knock on my door. “Come in,” I barely whisper. 

It was dad. He was tired but his eyes were happy. 

He closes the door behind him. “You okay?” Dad sits on my bed. 

I sigh. “Yeah. I just don’t know what to think.”

Dad nods but I don’t think he understood me at all. 

“You’ll be fine,” he shares a weak smile. 

“Thanks dad,” I lean on him. “You know, I might just do it. Who knows? It might be fun.” I say. But I just said it to make him happy. I’ll do it for him. 

“That’s my girl,” he replies. 

And for a long while, it’s just Aunt Cynthia’s loud voice in the background, echoing the house.