"Professor McGuire said that if I ace his last test I would be at the top of the class for this semester," Derrick, my older brother, mentioned before shovelling food into his mouth.

I looked over at my brother with a critical eye. His left eye always had a slight twitch whenever he was lying. I wondered what he was hiding from Mom and Dad.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

"Keisha, are you expecting someone?" Mom looked at me over her glasses, "You know I don't like it when company disturbs dinner."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm not expecting anyone, Mom." 

"Sorry, Mom, it's me," Derrick wiped his mouth and stood up. "Craig had to drop off some papers for me that Professor McGuire needs." 

"Humph," Mom nodded and Derrick went to answer the door.

A few minutes later, Derrick returned. 

"So, what type of papers did Craig need to drop off at this hour?" I smirked in Derrick's direction. 

"Nothing that concerns a high school student," Derrick responded, annoyed.

"We'll see about that," I mumbled as I gulped down the last of my juice.

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I put on my school uniform and glanced at myself in the mirror, even though I knew it wasn’t a pretty sight, well actually that’s a bit of an understatement. I am actually truly ugly.

When I got to school the girls all crowded around me,

“Hi, Ethan, how’s it going?”

“Hey Ethan, are we still going out this week.”

“Ethan, don’t forget you promised me a date at the weekend.”

Wonder how I still manage to date the hottest girls at school, even though I’m the ugliest boy?

At lunch I sat with Amanda, she was my date for the day.

“Oh Ethan, you are so funny! I’m so lucky to be dating you today.”

“You sure are, Amanda.”

At the end of the school day I stood at the school gates and waited for Amanda to come out.

“Hey, Ethan!”

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“So Principal Miller, you’ll get rid of all these boring subjects and fire the teachers I don’t like okay?”

“Yes Claire, anything for you.”

“Wonderful! Also, I have one more request.” I said while blinking at him. He looked totally mesmerized so I knew it was working.

“What is it, dear?”

“I want this office. Can you like, use my locker or something? And I’ll just bring my stuff in here and make it nice and cozy.”

“Anything for you Claire.”

I was excited but this was nothing new to me. I’d just left middle school and I ran that place! I planned to control my new high school too. See, whenever I looked into anyone’s eyes they’d do whatever I asked. Some people have told me that my eyes change into their favorite color when I look at them but when I look in the mirror, I see a mixture of magenta and purple – depending on my mood. Very rare right? I know!

I called my dad after I finished talking to Principal Miller.

“Daddy, can you bring my cute furniture and stuff? We have to redecorate the principal’s office. Well, it’s my office now – and you might need extra people to help to carry his stuff away. What? Yes, he agreed to use my locker. You want to know what subjects I got cancelled? Well P.E obviously – but Chemistry, Geography and Shop too. I don’t want to injure my beautiful, delicate hands. Okay daddy! See you soon!”

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was sitting in history class thinking of what to do to get my teacher to stop talking about, well, history. Like, I’m sorry, why would I wanna know about Alexander Hamilton when I could be playing basketball right outside this classroom?

I tapped the girl in front of me on the shoulder and a wink told her what I wanted. She ripped a few pages out of her notebook and handed them to me with a smile. I opened my bag without my teacher seeing me. If he had seen me he would have immediately known what I was up to. I ripped the paper into little bits and soon enough I was shooting little goopy paper balls, not at my teacher, but at the ceiling right above him. I then asked for permission to go to the bathroom. He handed me my hall pass, but before I left, I gave the wall a little punch, which shook the ceiling above and the paper balls rained down, getting stuck to my teacher’s bald head. The class erupted in laughter as I ran out of the classroom before my teacher could get me for what I did.

I did stuff like this in pretty much every class. Sometimes it was pretending to be dumb, sometimes it was the classic paper plane and sometimes it was playing an obnoxiously loud video on the smart board. I only got into real trouble once, and when I did, my entire class protested to get me out of detention, saying the teacher had no need to be so rude when he told me off. I was pretty much golden at school, not having to put in any effort and just passing my classes. I never thought it would all catch up to me, until it finally did.

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Are you ok?" Daniella, my girlfriend, looked at me concerned.

Sweat rolled down my face like a fat lady rolling down a hill. The armpits of my tshirt were soaked as the line moved forward. I've never been to an airport before and my parents warned me about the metal detectors and scanners used there.

"Sir, step through the scanner please," the officer looked at me annoyed.

Daniella was already through and she beckoned for me to come towards her. I gulped hard as I stepped through the scanner.

The scanner alarm rang loudly and I froze. What happened next changed my life forever.

Hi, my name is Adam.

The scanner alarm rang loudly and I froze. I watched as the officers huddled around the scanner. One of the officers walked towards me, “Sir, we have to take you to a second screening. We detected metal in your arm.”

“In his arm?” Daniella looked at me confused.

The officer ignored me and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into a room and closed the door. I heard loud voices outside the room, one of them being Daniella. I didn’t know what to expect. What did the officer mean they detected metal in my arm?

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The couple walked quickly up the path of the orphanage to the front door. When they got there they put the basket they were carrying on the floor in front of the door. They took a quick look around them to see if anyone was looking and then rang the doorbell.

Without stopping to see if anyone came to answer, they both took off running down the street as though their lives depended on it. The door was opened by a kind looking lady, she took one look at the note on top of the basket and sighed.

The note read: “This baby is far too pretty for us. Please take care of her. Thank you.”

You’re probably thinking that you can’t believe any parent would do that to their own child. Well guess what? That's exactly what happened to me!!

I can’t say that I was unhappy growing up in the orphanage, well I didn’t know any different did I? As they say, “you can’t miss what you’ve never had!”

But I always felt that something was missing from my life. The people at the orphanage took great care of me, I always had hot meals and a comfy bed. I had everything that I needed, but I didn’t have my parents.

The lady who had taken me in all those years ago had told me what had been written on the note. I just couldn’t understand why my parents couldn’t look after me.

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was exhausted, it had been a really long day at school and then I had stayed for football practice so I really couldn’t wait to get home.

As I went around the corner I could see my house in the distance and could almost smell my Mom’s cooking. I was starving!

Suddenly I heard the sound of tyres screeching and a car came hurtling down the street heading straight towards me. I tried to jump out of the way, but it was going too fast. The next thing I knew everything had gone black.

As I began to stir I could feel my head was throbbing. I tried to open my eyes but the glare from the lights above were too bright, so I closed them again.

“Charlie? Can you hear me?”

I recognised my Mom’s voice.

“Yyes, where am I?”

It was hard to get the words out, and when I did manage my voice sounded weird.

“You’re in hospital darling, you’ve had an accident.”

I blinked my eyes a couple of times and then opened them. Both of my parents were standing next to my bed, they had worried looks on their faces.

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was so happy to be home from work, it had been a very long day and I couldn’t wait to see my husband Tom.

“Hi darling, I’m home!”

“I’m in the kitchen!”

I took my jacket off and walked through to the kitchen, Tom was standing at the sink. I walked over to him, put my arms around him and gave him a big hug.

Immediately he collapsed on the floor.

“AHHHHH!”

I rang for an ambulance and within a few minutes they were wheeling him out on a stretcher. I went in the ambulance with Tom, I was a mess. I couldn’t stop crying.

When we got to the hospital they told me to go to the waiting room whilst the Doctor’s looked at Tom.

I could tell by the Doctor’s face when he came into the room that Tom had died.

“NO!”

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you imagine what it’s like to live out your best romantic dream ever? That fantasy you’re so obsessed with that it could only be found in your imagination?

Well that’s what I had! In real life! I fell in love with Steve when we were in high school. We were so in love with each other that we swore never to love anyone else, ever. He was handsome, respectful, sweet and he took me out on the most thoughtful and romantic dates. He was every girl’s dream boyfriend and sometimes, the other girls would try to steal him from me but they’d never succeed. He only had eyes for me – and I only had eyes for him.

We went to the same college for four years and when we were finished, he took me on a vacation to a little island in the South Pacific and proposed to me there. Everything was falling into place for me – at just the right time. When we got back home we announced our engagement and the wedding plans began pretty quickly.

We didn’t have to deal with a lot of the stress that couples face when planning to get married. Steve’s parents were really rich so they bought us a really nice house. They also deposited some money into our accounts because they knew it would take us a while to find good jobs since we were just out of college.

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I picked up the chair next to my bed and threw it through the window, glass shattering everywhere.

Carefully I climbed through the window, making sure to avoid the broken glass, and jumped down to the garden.

As soon as I landed I jumped straight to my feet and started running down the street as fast as I could. Suddenly a car came skidding to a halt right in front of me, it missed hitting me by only a matter of inches.

The car door opened and out climbed my Mom.

“Aaargh!!!”

When I was little it was just me and my Dad, I didn’t really have any memories of my Mom. I do have a clear memory though of the day my Dad told me my Mom had died. Even though I was really young at the time, I still remember how sad I felt when Dad told me that Mom had been in a car crash and died.

I was so sad that my Mom was gone, but I knew that me and my Dad would be fine. It took me a little while but eventually I thought about her less and less. I had lots of fun with my Dad, I think he probably spoiled me a bit, making up for the fact that I had lost my Mom. I have lots of memories of him taking me on day trips and him buying me toys and pretty much anything I wanted. For years it was just the two of us, we didn’t need anyone else, why would we?

Visit https://www.storytimeanimated.com/members to enjoy ad free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.