|Lost Stars|

| Chapter 1 |

I stopped blowing out my birthday candles the year my father disappeared. Like a magicians trick, he vanished into thin air. It was a Tuesday evening; a week after my 13th birthday. I had been so happy with all the presents I received. A brand new sweater that hugged my pale skin, coloring books, and my favorite, a telescope. I cried when I opened that pink and white gift wrapping to reveal a shiny black telescope. My rather small body held the box close. It became the one thing I looked forward to every night. I would take out my little notebook and draw everything my little blue eyes saw. My father used to say my eyes held the galaxy. Full of their own wonder and constellations. Of course it would end up with me giggling away his nonsense. It was little things like that which made me close to him. From the little smiles every time I did something or the hugs when I was sad. After he disappeared, I didn't get those smiles or hugs.

My father was a writer. He loved science fiction almost as much as he loved me. He even named me Mavis, the main character in his first novel, The Stillness. Growing up, he would tell me about the Mavis in the book and how she was an astronaut. He wrote the book in the very study he spend almost all his time in. It was his little home within his home. There were hundreds of small and large notebooks, filled with untouched stories and characters. They were his little source of escape to the world. No one was allowed to touch the notebooks that were tucked in the bookshelves, in between books and under mugs of old coffee. Sometimes I would try to sneak in his little cave and take one of them. To take a peek at their secrets. They whispered my name to me, taunting me. My father caught me, every time I would try to take a look into his world. There was never anger in his eyes, just emptiness.

It was one of the missions of the notebook where I realized he was gone. It was in the afternoon on a particularly rainy day. He went into his study hours earlier. Walking from my small room to the larger dim-lighted room, I stopped when I heard no sounds come from within. Not the sounds of typing or the sip of drinking coffee. All was still, unnervingly still. Slowly I opened the door and tiptoed inside. Not a single light was on or the smell of his familiar cologne. Looking towards the desk, everything had been the same the day before. The date on his daily log journal was yesterdays. Turning my eyes to his computer, I turned it on, only cover my mouth. There on the dark screen was a post-it with one word, bye.

We called the police to investigate. They found nothing other than the note on the computer. We waited for him to appear. It became days, to weeks, to months. It was then when he was announced missing. He left no trace other than those words. The police gave a variety of explanations. From abandonment of us, to suicide, to even murder. My mother refused to believe them all. She knew in her heart he was alive and well. Whatever the reason he ran off, it was for his happiness. She couldn't do anything but wait for her husbands return.

My mom hasn't been the same since despite it being four years ago. She often stopped to cry in the middle of cooking or in the store. I tried my best to comfort her, but in reality, I needed comfort to. I didn't have anyone. If I mentioned him in front of her, she would break down. After a year, she seemed to get better. She cried less and we could openly talk about him. She joined a book club to get her mind off if it. With him being a writer, it brought her closer to him. Books were her way of being close to him. For me, it was space. My mother came to love the little club of single mothers. They were either widowed or divorced. I'm glad she joined the group of them. Sometimes when they would have meeting at our house, I would catch her smiling.

Our house was often empty. The only other creature in the house was my cat, Thomas. He was an older gray cat. If he wasn't sleeping, he was eating or begging for attention. To cope with my mom's loneliness, her book club friends introduced her to the foreign exchange program. Everyone in the book club had at least one exchange student. They would host little parties t each others houses for them, often a movie gathering or a pool party. With all the begging and nagging, I'm pretty sure she succumbed to peer pressure.

Our first student was two girls from Hong Kong. Jasmine was my age, 14 at the time and Sunny was a year older. For two years now they've come to visit every summer. They became my only friends. Growing up, I didn't have anyone. Everyone thought it was that weird girl. No one talked to me or interacted with me. I was known as Mavis Bennett, the girl whose dad vanished. Bullying was a daily problem is grade school life. They found everything to pick on. My height, my missing father, my broken mother, my quietness and my obsession with space. My father started this love when he told me about my name and of the book it came from. He would to read stories of planet far away and green aliens. It often enough resulted in my moms cries of annoyance when I had gotten scared at night. Stars were always my favorite. I tried counting them when I was young, inevitably I failed trying.

And that is what I sat doing, counting the stars on my science textbook, waiting for the last bell the school year to announce our freedom. One more year of school and freedom will finally be mine. I can finally get away from homework, tests, and most all, people. The room was quiet except for the various stop in clicking the pens from anxiously waiting students. Through the years, I've come to learn how waiting for that last bell became some of the longest few moments of my life. It was worse than the last day with braces or the last few moments of having a single digit age. But it was not as bad as the day my father disappeared.

The older I got, it seemed a little to accept it. His disappearance went in stages: denial, then anger, then sorrow, and now numbness. When I was little, It was difficult. Like climbing a mountain without any gear. I tried to climb up and up, but I kept slipping back a little, afraid I would fall again. All of my classmates would make cards for Father's Day. I would watch as everyone bragged about how amazing their dads were. How tall he was, how strong, how he told the greatest of jokes. Instead of joining in, I was stuck to make a card for my uncle. Yes, I have to admit it was awkward, but it made me feel a little less lonely.

I was so zoned onto my textbook, I almost didn't even hear the sound of the bell. Everyone ran towards the door at once. Most of the boys jumped over the desks and the girls giggled about their summer plans. I waited until everyone was gone before gathering my things.

"Have any plans this summer miss Bennett?" My elderly science teacher asked. Mrs. Wilton was a overweight lady with her nose often stuck far into the air. Although almost everyone hated her, I didn't find her that bad. Sure, we was a terrible teacher and didn't know how to stay out of other people business, but she still was only a human being.

"Same old-same old." I replied with a shrug. I pulled my light blue backpack over my shoulder and onto my back. I swear to you the cause of future back problem is heavy backpacks. Mrs. Wilton smiled and nodded, grabbing the returned textbook from my desk.

"Have fun with the same old-same old." She finally said, ushering me towards the door. When she waved again, I ascended down the hallways and towards the locker hall. Here, at least 50 lockers claimed it as their home. The yellow lockers were being emptied by their expiring owners. I walked to my own locker, taking off my bag to open it. I normally didn't stuff a lot in there, only the various notebooks and textbooks. But with the remaining textbooks being turned in already, it was only a few colorful notebooks. Stuffing the empty lined books, I shut my locker for the last time that year. Right when the back was about to be tugged onto my back, I jumped as an ear piercing scream filled the hallway.