Hopeful - Luke Castellan [1]

1 ~ I Vaporize My Teacher

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading my story because you think you might be one, my advice is to close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you.

First, let me introduce and describe myself. My name is Adelaide Achilles Jackson. I'm fifteen years old. I have shoulder-length black hair matched with sea-green eyes, tan skin, long eyelashes, and full lips. I stand at around 5 foot 9 and weigh maybe 120 pounds. I tend to wear dark clothes and a silver necklace with a blue crystal pendant that was the only gift I have from my father who left me as a child.

Anyway, steering away from topics that make me uncomfortable and want to punch someone. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that.

I could draw you a map of all of my life events that have been chaotic and unlucky but we would be here for entirely too long. Even though, my entire life has been just a string of bad luck, it didn't really start to go catastrophic until last May, when our tenth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to Downtown New York to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff. Mind you in a museum that's supposed to be whisper level. Seems like a brilliant idea right?

Mr. Brunner, the Latin teacher (why did we have a Latin teacher again?) was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay but considering my luck I was bound to be wrong. I mean bad things happen all of the time around me. I'll give you a couple of examples,

I was playing with a hacky sack and I broke the apartment windows

I flooded the bathroom and I don't even know how I did that

When I was twelve I caused a whole bunch of pipes to explode and gush water which got everyone soaked and was an interesting day. However, on this trip, I was determined to be good. I should have known that it was a lost cause. All the way into the city, I begrudgingly put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.