9The Ganesh Trilogy
By T. S. Wolff
Book One: The Sacred Stone
Chapter One: The Traitor
Samara
You don't want to hear this story if you happen to have a pimple in between your eyes.
Trust me.
You'll realize the truth, and then it'll be too late.
Just believe whatever lie about the pimple that your parents told you, and whatever you do, avoid getting into taxis at all costs! This is vitally important, take my word for it.
Don't take my word for it? You'll probably die.
Okay, so don't. Okay. I sure didn't, because I didn't know it then, not really.
[OK, okay already! I'm getting to it!]
So I guess I should back up and explain, to make things better. For you. Then you won't make the same mistake I did. At least I hope so.
So I was just this regular girl (HA!) with the pimple on the forehead and the Indian name from Brazil, now in Indiana, the girl who had to take English class 15 hours a day.
For a while.
I was in the car for my first day at school, having actually no fun at all, and suddenly there was a crack of lightning and thunder shook and rain started to fall. It was drizzling at first, but then it grew and grew and suddenly there was a huge thunderstorm, and then it pounded on the car harder and harder and a crack of lightning came out and hit the car behind us. I was pretty scared by now, but not mother. She kept on driving without a word.
Finally I arrived at the school. The teacher looked very mean. He had a long cape, with a hood covering the sides and back of his face, He had a peircing frown, with all his teeth- no, FANGS- showing, and those intense- were those black eyes? He also had a huge lump in his head, like he had hit himself with a hammer. But the weird part was, each side of the robe had 2 sleeves, or at least I had thought it was weird. Of course only one of the sleeves was occupied on each side.
"Get to work you younglings!" scolded the teacher. He turned, baring his fangs at yours truly- yes, me. I felt as if all the rain was still pounding down on my body, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so I was pretty terrified, I admit it.
"Ah," he droned, "Fresh meat."
I was frozen.
"Well?" he snapped. "Get on with it! Inside!" He pointed to the cabin painted red.
O-kay? This was getting really weird.
I did the natural thing: I pretended to walk towards the cabin, but when his back turned I ran for my life into the woods.
Suddenly I felt a streak of lightning come out. It nearly hit an old man, which I noticed was right next to me sitting on a fallen-down stump.
"Ah, Gods," muttered the man who was dressed in a similar outfit of my teacher. "Always turning against one another. How terribly depressing."
A squirrel with fangs came out and bit the man on the leg. Hard.
"Hey!" I yelled. "No no no!"
The squirrel bared his teeth. Then it backed off into the woods reluctantly.
The man turned to me and said, "Ah yes. Samara." How did he know my name? "Because I am a-" He began, then suddenly realized he was speaking aloud. "Good to see you again! Tell me, how's school going?"
"Good," I lied.
"Do not lie to me, Samara Golton." He began to lift his hood, and I was terrified at what I saw.
"The Great God Rudra has turned traitor yet again. Come. We must get you to safety."
I didn't have time to process his words. I was too scared at what I saw.
For there, as he took the hood off, I saw that in all four directions: Never Eat Slimy Worms (North East South West)- were four, exactly-the-same heads.
I had to do this. Read on to see that this isn't just your typical Percy Jackson story. Direct interference by a god! Whoo! 2 points for T. S. Wolff! YEAH!