My best friend and I were sitting at the back of the classroom, trying not to get noticed by our teacher as we whispered and giggled to each other. We had so much to catch up on, I hadn’t seen her since Friday afternoon and it was now Monday morning.

I was listening to her telling me all about the party she had gone to on Saturday when suddenly someone caught my attention.

“Who is that?’

“Who?”

“Him, over there!”

“No idea, must be a new boy.”

“He is so hot!”

“Aww Emma, have you got a crush?’

I didn’t need to answer her, my blushes confirmed that I did have a crush!

“Why don’t you go over and speak to him then?”

Even though it was totally out of character for me to do something like that, I took a deep breath and went over to introduce myself.

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"We have another package for you to deliver don't be late." The phone went dead.

“What?” I said looking at my phone confused.

I scrolled through my phone to see if I ever got a call or message from the number before.

“Who are these…..”

My voice trailed off when I realized it wasn’t my phone, that’s why I didn’t recognize the number, it was my mom’s!

Hi, I’m Jackson.

“Tasha is going to kill me,” I said as I turned the car around, “I just hope mom hasn’t left for work yet.”

Tonight Tasha, my girlfriend of two years, had to babysit her younger brother so I was going to order pizza and spend a few hours over there. I told her I would be there at 7pm. It was already 6:50pm. My phone vibrated. I opened the message, it was an address. I turned the corner and realized mom’ truck was still there. I pulled up to the driveway behind it and ran into the house.

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“Odessa! Malcolm! There’s someone here we would like you to meet!”

I crawled out of my room and groaned. I had an assignment due and all these interruptions were totally unacceptable.

As soon as we arrived in the living room Mom introduced the girl who was standing between her and Dad, “Meet Genesis, you new sister!”

My jaw dropped! New sister?

“Yesssss!” Malcolm squealed, like the annoying ten year old that he is, “An upgrade to Odessa. I shall call her Odessa 3.0.”

“Oh and Odessa,” Mom looked at me, “We are going to need your room to put Genesis in. You will be moved to the attic.”

As I looked out of the attic window and watched my family hop into the car, with Genesis, acting like the sister of Chucky, Malcolm overly annoying and my parents acting as though I didn't exist unless they wanted me to fetch something for them, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that they were going out and I would finally have some peace and quiet.

“I miss Grandma,” I thought as I dragged myself out of bed to attend to the long list of chores that Mom left for me to complete.

A few days after Grandma’s funeral, her lawyer called and asked to speak with me and my parents. While he was here he told us that I was the sole heir to Grandma’s estate.

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“Watch out everyone, here comes Craig, the teachers’ pet!”

I hated having to walk past the “cool kids”. They always had something to tease me about. It wasn’t my fault I was a clever kid. Didn’t mean they had the right to call me a “nerd”. But they always did.

I tried to ignore them all, but as I tried to get past them, one of the boys stuck out his foot and tripped me up. I went flying in the air and landed flat on my face. Everyone started laughing and jeering, loudly.

The cool kids just walked away, still laughing as they went. I sat there on the floor, tears pouring down my cheeks. I knew people were staring at me, but I couldn’t stop crying.

I’d been miserable for weeks from their constant teasing, and this had been the final straw. As I sat there sobbing I suddenly felt someone put their arms around me. I looked up and saw a pretty girl standing beside me.

“Are you ok? Come on, stand up.”

She held out her hand to me and when I took hold of it, she pulled me to my feet.

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I watched as Billie walked into the cafeteria, as usual she was surrounded by her group of friends. I had been wanting to ask her out on a date for ages, but I could never catch her on her own.

I had decided that I couldn’t wait any longer, there was nothing else for it, I was going to have to ask her in front of everyone.

I waited until she and her friends had got their lunches and sat down at a table.

“Right then Craig, it’s now or never!”

I took a deep breath and casually wandered over to their table.

“Hi there!”

Billie looked up at me, she had a puzzled look on her face.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Err, yeah, err hi there! Err, listen I was err, wondering err..”

“Come on, spit it out!”

“Would you like to go out on a date with me?”

“Err, NO THANKS!”

I was so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to say, I actually thought I was going to burst into tears. I had been waiting for that moment for so long, only to be rejected. As I walked away I could hear her friends giggling.

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I was sitting in the lounge watching tv, it was a typical Saturday afternoon in our house, and even though I complained to Mom sometimes about being bored, the truth is, I liked spending time with my Mom.

I guess the reason we were so close is because I had never really known my Dad. He had disappeared one day when I was only about five years old. It had been more than ten years since we had seen him and we never heard from him again!

Suddenly I heard the sound of someone hammering on the front door.

“Go answer that for me will you Jake.”

“Aww, Mom, I’m in the middle of a programme.”

“Jake, come on, I’m busy here.”

I opened the door, when I saw who was standing there, I screamed.

“Dad!”

“Hello Jake!”

“What…. I mean….. How?.....I mean……”

“Well aren’t you going to invite me in?”

I opened the door and my Dad walked past me and into the kitchen.

“Crash!”

I heard the sound of a plate smashing on the floor and then my Mom shrieking,

“Oh my god, darling! You’re back!”

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Michael and I went home, I couldn’t wait to tell Layla that we were dating. But when we arrived we got the shock of our lives, the front door was wide open and the place was full of broken glass, Layla was nowhere to be seen!

“Michael, what’s going on, this is starting to really scare me!”

“I don’t know Sally, let’s see if we can see anything inside.”

I followed Michael into the house, the whole place looked like a bomb had hit it, tables and chairs were turned on their sides and the window was broken. There were belongings scattered everywhere. As I walked through to the kitchen the first thing I saw was a note on the table. I picked it up and read it, I felt sick when I realised that it appeared to have been written in blood!

“If you want your friends back, come and get them. Oh, and don’t bother calling the cops. If you do, you’ll never see your friends again - Amber"

Below the words, a drawing of a house was made in blood!

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it, it was Amber that was behind the kidnapping all along!”

“You’re right Michael, and now Layla is missing too! What are we going to do?”

“We should call the cops!”

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I opened my eyes and stretched my arms out, yawning loudly at the same time. I looked at the clock on my bedside table, it said 8 o’clock.

A few seconds later I heard a soft tapping at my bedroom door. I knew it would be Nora, our maid, bringing me my morning tea.

“Come in!”

The door opened and Nora came into my room, I smiled at her,

“Morning Nora!”

Nora looked at me, but instead of answering, she suddenly started screaming

“My eyes, my eyes!”

The next thing I knew she had collapsed onto my bedroom floor.

“Nora! Nora! What’s the matter!”

I jumped out of bed and ran over to her, I tried to wake her but she was unresponsive.

I shook Nora but her eyes remained closed.

“Mum, Dad, help! Something has happened to Nora!”

My Mum and Dad came running into my room.

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I was in a deep, deep sleep when suddenly I began to hear a voice in my head.

“I must be dreaming! But it sounds so real!”

I opened my eyes, I could still hear the voice, so I definitely wasn’t dreaming.

“Hello, hello, are you there?”

“Who’s that?”

“I’m your pillow!”

“Are you really a talking pillow?”

“Well you can hear me can’t you?”

“Yes, I can hear you! But how can a pillow talk? It’s impossible.”

“I am an Area 51 experiment, but I managed to escape and I made it to your bedroom!”

‘Wow! I feel quite honoured that you chose me!”

“You won’t tell anyone that I can speak, will you?”

“No, no, of course I won’t say anything. You can trust me!”

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“Yes, I’m sorry, I’ll go noEver since Covid my school had been doing online classes. I loved it! No more getting up at the crack of dawn to get ready for school. I just hopped out of bed five minutes before class started and logged on to my computer.

That morning started off just the same as all of the other days. I clicked on to my English class and waited to see my teacher's face pop up. Suddenly there was a bright flash and the screen went blank. I had no idea what could’ve happened, maybe my computer had glitched or something.

I waited a few minutes then finally the screen lit up again. But instead of seeing Mrs Wilson, my screen was filled with a bunch of faces I didn’t recognise. My face fell in shock when I heard what they were saying,

“This mission is top secret, for your ears only! No one can know about our plans to spy on Russia.” The man said.

I couldn’t believe it, I’d somehow managed to join a top secret government meeting. I listened as they discussed exactly how they were going to infiltrate the Russian government. It was amazing, like something out of a movie.

“Achoo!”

Suddenly all the men stopped talking and looked at each other. I couldn’t believe it, they had heard me sneezing, I must have had my microphone on!

“Who’s there? Who is it? Reveal your identity.” Said a voice.

I was about to log off but what the man said next stopped me in my tracks.

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