A warning: if you have not read "Teenage Stupidity With a Trace of Hormones", you willnot get this story at all! So if you haven't read that and think this looks interesting, go read that story NOW.

"Arianna," a high pitched voice said. I stirred, but chose not to open my eyes. Then, someone started shaking me. I chose not to respond that time, either. "Arianna!" I felt someone get on top of me, and start jumping up and down. "A-ri-an-na!" That time, due to intense pain, I opened my eyes.

"Jeez, Zoe!" I shouted, sitting up. "What do you want?"

Zoe, my six-year-old sister, was standing right next to my bed, pouting with her arms crossed.

"It's time for school," she replied to my previous question. "And you're mean."

"I'm not mean," I replied. "You're the one who started jumping on me."

"Uh-uh!" Zoe protested. "Meanie! Meanie!" She stuck out her tongue, spit right in my face, and skipped off, probably to tell Mom how "mean" I was.

"Gross," I muttered, wiping the spit off my face. Although Zoe had given me a rude awakening, I figured it was best to get out of bed and get ready for school. I got dressed, and went downstairs to see that, as usual, just about everyone in my entire family was having breakfast.

At the head of the table was my maternal grandfather, Grandpa Kyle. He really wasn't that old, only about fifty-two years old. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Mana, was seated to the right of him. She was only fifty years old. My parents had me as teenagers, so that kind of explained why they were so young for grandparents. Grandma Mana was a teacher, although I hadn't had her for class in years, since she mainly worked with the younger kids.

Sitting next to Grandma Mana was Mom, and next to her was Dad. They were both only thirty-two years old. Dad was a teacher at my school, but I hadn't had him for class in years, either. He worked with the kids between the group that Grandma Mana worked with, and the group my Grandpa Barrett worked with. For some reason, I didn't look like him at all. I always liked him, as we both shared a fondness for music. I took more after Mom, at both physically and emotionally. We both had the same red-brown hair and fiery temper. Because of that last trait, we didn't get along very well.

To the right of Dad were my uncle and aunt, who I just called Aaron and Leann. Mom and Aaron were twins, so they looked almost exactly alike, with the same hair and the same brown eyes. Leann was the complete opposite in terms of appearance. She had beautiful hair and eyes, and skin like a porcelain doll. Unfortunately, she wasn't very smart, and often embarrassed Aaron.

On the subject of Aaron and Leann, sitting in order of age were my three cousins, Lily, also known as Lillian, Flora, and Julian, aged fifteen, fourteen, and nine. Lily was closest to my age, only about two months younger, but we didn't get along too well. She was a goody-two shoes who always followed rules, and I was just the opposite, as well as the fact that she was sweet and benevolent, and I came off as mean and cold to just about everyone. And she was absolutely gorgeous. The only thing that made her the least bit enjoyable for me to be around was that she was dumb as a bag of hammers, and said stupid things all the time. Flora, I could tolerate a little more. She was active all the time, and insulted anyone, just because she felt like it. She favored the de Sainte-Coquille family in terms of appearance, looking exactly like her maternal grandfather, Max. Julian, on the other hand, was a "good kid" like Lily, but quieter and less obnoxious. He usually kept to himself, and always had a book in his hand. I liked him the best out of all my cousins. He was already very sweet and chivalrous, and he was adorable. He looked exactly like Aaron.

Then, there was my twin brother, Tristan, seated to the right of Julian. He was the only one at the table who was actually eating, and man, did he eat. He was of average height and weight for his age, but I was almost certain most of his weight was comprised of muscles that, for some reason, didn't show up. I was almost certain that he was addicted to food. He was always really polite around family, but whenever he so much as heard a phrase such as "group from a girls' school in the city staying at the inn" or, "women's choir singing in the chapel today", or anything like that, he would drop whatever he was doing, demand to know where the "chicks" were, and ask if they were hot. It was all for show, though. I mean, he did like girls, but I knew for a fact that he was a hopeless romantic, and that he cared for his family more than anything in the world. He was overprotective of me to the point where it was annoying. We also looked exactly alike, aside from the fact that he was a guy and I was a girl. Another thing he kept hidden was that like Grandpa Kyle, he was an amazing artist. Even his simplest drawings were amazing, and for some reason, he only showed his artwork to me, due to his fear of rejection.

Next to Tristan was Gerard, the daydreamer of the family. His favorite pastimes were writing and making up stories. He was incredibly advanced in both areas, even though he was only twelve years old. Sadly, he used his storytelling abilities most of the time for getting out of sticky situations, such as not paying attention in class. He had black hair and dark blue eyes, so his most frequently asked question was, "Mom, am I adopted?", to which Mom always replied, "Yeah, let's go with that. We got you from the moon, and that's why you look exactly like your grandmother." Gerard always laughed at that, and went back to playing with his easel or something.

Sitting in a normal sized chair, but on top of a stack of books, was the youngest and most interesting of all my siblings, Zoe. She was a spitting image of Dad, or at least she looked like what Mom told me Dad used to look like when he was six. She had golden hair, baby blue eyes, and freckles on her nose and cheeks. One might think from looking at her that she was an angel, but that person would be dead wrong. Anyone familiar with Zoe knew that she was an annoying, temper tantrum throwing tattletale. She was the devil trapped inside the body of a six-year-old. Her favorite game to play with other kids was, "I'm a princess, so be my servants and give me what I want or I'll scream and say you hit me." That wasn't the game's real name, but that was basically what it consisted of.

Finally, there was me, Arianna. According to other people, I was smart, pessimistic, rebellious, asthmatic, or mean. I didn't consider myself as any of those, except maybe for asthmatic, but for all I knew, they could have been right. As I mentioned before, I had red hair like Mom, but for some reason, I had blue-green eyes and pointed ears. Mom had explained to me that I had some elvish ancestors. I always dressed differently than other people my age, and my hair was always a mess, but I liked it that way. People also called me a musical prodigy, which I didn't get at all. I only played piano and sang, which I assumed I got from my Dad.

Little did I know what sorts of adventures I would have, in the very near future.

I sat down in the only empty seat at the table, which was in between Grandpa Kyle and Zoe.

"Look who finally got out of bed," Lily said to me.

"I stayed up all night doing homework," I replied. I lowered my voice so it was barely audible. "Unlike you."

"Arianna said something mean!" Zoe immediately cried. "She said 'unlike you'!" Leann gave Mom a worried look.

"Zoe!" Gerard shouted. "Don't tell on people just because you feel like it."

"Okay, okay," Mom said. "Let's keep the shouting down. Arianna, eat." She pointed to my plate. I rolled my eyes, picked up my fork, and started to eat.

"Back to the work thing," Dad said, obviously trying to change the subject. "You know, you guys have got to speak up if the workload is too heavy. We're not trying to give you gray hair as teenagers."

"It's fine, Dad," I replied. "I can take it." I started coughing, and what had started as a little cough gradually grew harder to control.

"Doesn't sound like it," Grandpa Kyle muttered.

"I'm fine," I replied, once the cough had died down. I drank from my cup of orange juice just in case I started coughing again.

Mom looked over at Tristan.

"Did you seriously just eat all five of those pancakes?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he replied. I could tell he still had food in his mouth.

"Jeez!" Flora exclaimed. "Save some for the rest of us, fatass!"

"Watch your language, Flora," Aaron said. "Little pitchers." Lily looked at a pitcher of water on the table with a confused expression, shrugged, and went back to picking at her food. I suppressed laughter. When Aaron said "little pitchers", he was actually referring to the ears of Gerard, Julian, and Zoe.

"I'm not fat," Tristan said to Flora. "If I was, I wouldn't have ladies flocking to me like I do."

"Even I don't lie that much," Gerard muttered, shaking his head.

"Yeah," Flora added. "The little paint chip has a point. The only girl who won't leave you alone is a total geek!" She was referring to Sammy, one of the three other kids at school who weren't in our family. And she was a total geek.

"I just don't understand," Grandma Mana said.

"What don't you understand?" Flora asked.

"Why you kids have to be so mean to each other all the time," Grandma Mana replied. "Is that really necessary?"

"Well," Flora muttered. "It's not like anyone's going to tell her about this conversation." Zoe's face lit up. "Don't even think about it, princess. The only throne you have control over is the porcelain one." Lily looked at her with a confused expression, and Flora noticed. "The crapper."

"Flora," Aaron said, putting his fork down. "If I have to tell you one more time to-"

"Okay!" Flora interrupted, putting her hands up. "Christ on a bike, Dad, you don't need to lose your mind!" Aaron continued eating, as if satisfied with that response.

I tried to finish up my breakfast as quickly as I could before it was time to leave for school, but I was unsuccessful.

"Everyone ready?" Dad asked. Everyone gave some sort of response, except for me. "Okay, then, let's go."

"I'll wash the dishes," Mom said, getting up. As Dad started to leave, she caught him by the arm, and kissed him. "Bye, Lee."

There was a pile of backpacks by the front door of the house, but I always knew which mine was, because it was the most worn-out. It was almost as if our backpacks reflected our personalities, Lily's was perfectly organized and didn't have a speck of dirt on it, Zoe's was bright pink and had flowers drawn by Gerard on it, Tristan's was always filled with drawings, et cetera.

"All right," Grandma Mana said after all the backpacks had been snatched up. "Let's go."

We started off to school, and unfortunately, I had no idea how much trouble I was going to get into that day.

First chapter! *Hoots and hollers*

Agh...so many characters to keep track of! And there will be even more. My head's going to explode...

So yeah. These first couple of chapters are mainly going to deal with the fact that Arianna is a nasty, troublemaking bitch. I kind of tried to make her almost like a mixture of Bianca (yes, I know she's not in this game) and Orland. Wait until the next chapter. You're going to hate her even more. But she's really a good person! I promise. And as you can probably tell, she and Tristan know absolutely nothing about how they came to be.

Let's see. I have a nasty cold. Yeah. That's about it.