The Balance

Chapter 1

The New Girl

"Open your books to page one hundred and fifty five, class," Mrs Heady ordered. There was a clatter of banging desks, thumping books and fluttering pages. Mrs Heady sighed as she waited for her absolutely unorganized class to get organized. That, as you'd have guessed, took a very long time. Just as the history teacher opened her mouth to talk, the door swung open, and in came a small but tough looking vampire girl with straight dark brown hair with red highlights. She was wearing dark grey baggy jeans, and a dark green shirt and a black tie. Everyone stared at her.

"Um, will you please stop staring at me? I mean, it's not like just because I walked inside you discovered something new," she said. Thatch, the bully vampire, narrowed his violet eyes at her.

"I've never seen you around here before," he said suspiciously.

"Wow. That's so amazing; I think you could win a trophy. For the stupidest person in the whole Underworld," the girl said sarcastically. Thatch wasn't used to be spoken to like that. He opened his mouth and searched his mind for a witty comeback, but nothing crossed his mind. His gang stared at him expectantly.

"That- that's not true," he stuttered hastily. "You would win that prize, not me,"

"Give me one good reason how I would win that prize,"

"Because-"

"Because you are ashamed that you just got owned and you want to make me look like a loser except I'm not a loser, so you can't own me. Face it, Purple Eyes, you suck,"

Everyone marvelled at her coolness. Mrs Heady, on the other hand, was annoyed that she was interrupted, so she told the girl to introduce herself and then sit down wherever she wanted.

"I'm Esta, and, as you can see, I'm a vampire. And just because that purple-eyed loser is a vampire, does not mean I'm exactly like him, okay?" she said. Then she made her way to the back of the room and sat down at the last table. Thatch scowled. He didn't like being called a loser.

0

Casper, Mantha and Ra were walking together, as usual, to lunch.

"Did you see the look on Thatch's face when Esta called him a purple-eyed loser?" Mantha asked. Ra and Casper nodded their heads vigorously.

"'Course I did! No way would I miss that!" Ra cried, and he and Mantha doubled over laughing. Casper wasn't laughing, though. Sure, he had a smile on his face, but he thought it was rude to laugh about people.

"Come, on, let's invite her to sit with us," he said, changing the subject. But Esta was already sitting with some people. She was sitting with the people everyone thought she definitely wouldn't sit with: Thatch and his gang. Casper, Mantha and Ra were surprised to see her sitting there. But Esta said something to Thatch and cracked up. Thatch was grimacing, and his gang were sitting there as if they didn't know what to do. Casper and his friends sat near them, curious on what Esta had told them. Thatch was saying, "No way! I won't do it!"

"You have to, or you're out of the game. Come on, don't be so stubborn, you moron!" Esta said back.

"Fine, fine, I'll do it! But now it's my turn. Truth or dare?"

Suddenly, Casper understood. The vampire rivals were doing Truth or Dare to see who was better. He explained to Mantha and Ra, who were confused.

"Dare."

"Okay, I dare you to write the worst word you can think of on a piece of paper, write it really big on a big piece of paper, and hang it at the top of Scare School. There!"

"Easy! And you have to do you're dare during Science, okay? Okay, now, I need a bright red pen and a huge piece of paper," Esta said. Dummy Girl, who was in Thatch's gang, handed her a red pen. Mosshead said that there was some really big paper in the Science Room. So Esta went to the Science Room and Thatch and his gang followed. Luckily, Mr Burns wasn't in the Science Room. Esta laid the paper flat on the floor, and scrawled a not very nice word on it. Thatch and his gang laughed. Esta rolled the paper up and brought it outside. She turned looked up the school. The others stared at her, waiting for her to turn into a bat. For some reason, she didn't.

"Dang. I don't know how I'll climb this," she muttered.

"Can't you turn into a bat?" Thatch asked, confused.

"Nope, but I can turn into a dog, though. Or a wolf, whatever you want to call them,"

"Why?" Dummy Girl asked curiously.

"Oh, I don't know! What do you think I am? Some gene expert or something?"

"What has jeans got to do with anything?"

"No. Just- no."

Esta, tucking the poster under her arms and stuffing some tape in her jean pockets, started to climb the school. She reached the top in no less than ten minutes, and taped the poster to the point of the roof. Thatch and his crew began guffawing. Esta climbed back down quickly, and when she turned to speak to Thatch, her blood-red eyes sparkled.

"Now it's your turn, Thatch," she smirked. "You have to call Mr Burns an idiot,"

0

It was Esta who won. Thatch gave up when Esta dared him to walk through the Scary Woods.

"What a wimp!" she declared, and went off, cackling. So it was Esta who was 'better'. Then Casper, Mantha and Ra finally had the chance to go up and speak to her.

"Hi! I'm Casper," Casper introduced himself during lunch the next day.

"I'm Mantha," Mantha said.

"I'm Ra, and I'm extremely cool and- OW!" Ra cried when Mantha kicked his shin. Esta raised an eyebrow.

"Extremely cool and what? Pathetic?"

"Told you, Mantha! Now she'll think we're losers,"

"No-one can be more of a loser than Thatch!"

"But we saw you talking to him yesterday," Mantha pointed out.

"I was daring him stuff. And he dared me stuff, and I obviously won. We were doing Truth or Dare, except we never did Truth,"

"Why?"

"Because whenever you do Truth, they always ask, 'Who do you like?' And it freaking gets on my darn nerves,"

"How would you know if Thatch would ask that?"

"Because everyone is the same!"

"Would you?"

"No."

They stop talking for a moment. Then Casper said, "So. Um, can we sit here?"

Esta shrugged.

"I guess," she said uncertainly. Casper, Mantha and Ra sat at her table. Esta bit into a burger, which had raw meat and blood sauce in it. Ra was about to say something, when Thatch, who was sitting on the table next to them, made a snide remark.

"Ha! The new girl's sitting with the losers!"

Esta turned around, still munching on her burger. She said something, but since her mouth was full of meat and blood and bread, nobody heard what she was saying.

"What was that?" Thatch sneered. Esta waved a hand at him.

"Never mind. Anyway, what I meant was I might be sitting with a bunch of friendly people, but at least I wasn't sitting at a table with a bunch of blockheads like you,"

"What'd you say before?"

"Never mind that. If I said it now, you'd probably go in a big tantrum. Because-" A pencil hurled across the room, and hit Esta right square in the face. Thatch and his gang burst out laughing. Mantha and Ra were trying not to laugh, and the whole cafeteria was roaring with laughter, too. Esta jumped to her feet.

"Who threw that?" she demanded. Thatch pointed across the room. A furry purple monster was laughing along with his friends. Esta marched right up to him, and pulled him out of his seat. He was still laughing uncontrollably. Everyone else stopped, watching Esta and the furry monster.

"Excuse me, but shut the hell up or I'll have to slap that smile of your face," she snarled. The monster thing tried to stop laughing, but he was still grinning. So Esta slapped him round in the face. His grin had been 'slapped off'.

"Ow! What the heck?" he cried, rubbing his face. But Esta wasn't done yet. She kicked his shin, and swung her fist up so it hit the furry monster right on the nose. Well, wherever its nose was supposed to be. Esta hit his face again, and began banging his head against the wall when someone pulled her away from the furry monster. It was Franken-gym-teacher. Everyone was silent now. The furry monster whimpered and ran out of the cafeteria. Esta was scowling, her blood red eyes glowing with anger.

"Oh, what are all you idiots staring at, huh?" she snapped. Everyone looked away. Franken-gym-teacher pushed her forwards, and she stumbled back to her table. Thatch was staring at her, his eyes large and round. Esta glared at him.

"Stop staring, or you'll regret it, moron!" she snapped. Thatch looked back at his gang. The whole cafeteria was silent. This irritated Esta.

"Darn! It's so dang quiet! Who cares if I just beat up that-" she said a word she really shouldn't have said. That made the room even quieter. "Who the hell cares if I just swore? I do whatever the hell I want!"

Then she muttered something and sat down and began eating again.