The Bookworm

Prologue (edited)

Noah

I had been ten years old when I first laid my eyes upon Amara Miller.

She was sitting in the middle of the playground. She was wearing a navy-blue dress that showed off her chubby baby-like legs. At six years old, she was a short kid, even for a human girl. Her blond hair was frizzy and wild, dancing in front of her face as the wind played it to its beat. Her pale face was buried in a book, providing shade against the sun, which could've potentially given her complexion a bit of color.

That afternoon, I had been playing with my friends, or better yet, I was supposed to be playing with my friends, because I couldn't take my eyes off this genuinely odd little girl. Instead of moving and running around like the rest of us, she was sitting in the middle of the playground, on the sand, studying a book with such unwithering concentration, as if she could make sense of it. At her age, though, it was pretty obvious, she couldn't possibly be reading a book.

Did she even know the alphabet yet?

"Amara, why did you undo your pigtails, baby? Now your hair is getting in the way." A tall woman spoke, kneeling to re-do the girl's hair.

The girl didn't put down the book, though, or lower it as the woman started to brush the unruly hair with her fingers to manage it. No. She kept studying the pages... And that's when frustration started to bubble in me.

Couldn't they do this somewhere else, other than in the middle of this busy, public place? I wanted to play, but she was distracting me. If all she needed to do was skip through a book, she could do that better at home.

Frustration got temporarily clouded with curiosity, though. What was the book about? Judging by her age and the book cover, I gathered it should've been mostly illustrated, still though, my curiosity didn't lessen. Actually, I began to wonder whether it was comics or a fairy-tail. A coloring book, maybe? She was far away, so I couldn't make out what it was, and this unnerving feeling doubled since my wandering gaze landed on her a few minutes ago.

"Hey! Noah, catch the ball, man. What are you looking at?" My friend shaved me on the shoulder lightly to refocus.

Right. What was I looking at? I was wondering the same thing. I was here to have fun and enjoy the little freedom I had since studying was all I was allowed to do. These moments were mine to spend with my friends. I usually had to negotiate and promise my parents I'd do better at school, even though I wasn't sure how. I hated to waste or spoil time by getting distracted.

"Nothing, sorry. Pass me the ball!" I said before I ran after the basketball, successfully catching it and scoring some awesome goals.

I never really saw her face that day, but that wouldn't be the case for long.