Anna awoke to the sound of something scratching loudly at her window. The room was almost completely dark, with only a pale grey light seeping through a crack in the curtains. Startled by the noise, Anna reluctantly crawled out from under her fluffy down comforter and made her way to the window. She pulled back the curtain and peered out onto a very grey world.
The wind was howling. The branches of the spindly tree outside her bedroom were banging violently on the windowpane, and Anna realized this was the sound that had woken her up so early in the morning.
Looking out the window, Anna couldn’t believe what she saw. She’d read about the approaching storm in the paper, sure, but she hadn’t expected this. The wind whipped through the trees, pushing them several feet towards the ground. Rain came down in torrents, and Anna now knew the meaning of the phrase pouring buckets. She swore she’d never seen so much rain in her life! Small rivers were rushing down the gutters. Anna fought down a feeling of nausea as she realized that she’d have to walk to school in what might as well have been a hurricane.
She looked over to where her alarm sat on her nightstand. 4:53. Anna shrugged; sleep was more of a luxury for a vampire anyway. She only really needed an hour or two – if she slept at all. It’s just that she preferred to get four or five. She walked across the room and turned on the light, resigned to the fact that she was up for the day, and it didn’t look promising. Anna walked over to her closet and dejectedly started searching for something to wear.
It was a grey kind of day. When she’d looked out of her window, all Anna had seen was grey. The sky was an ominous steel grey, the trees were charcoal-colored, the road was slate – even the houses seemed to be more grey than usual. Anna decided to match all of this with a long button-down shirt – grey of course. She pulled this on, put on some blue jeans, and went to the living room where she stared out the window in the hopes that it would stop raining soon.
Anna spent almost forty minutes waiting for the rain to stop. Unfortunately for her, it didn’t. She couldn’t say for sure, but she thought it had gotten worse. She looked at the grandfather clock resting in her hall. She had a little more than half an hour to get to school, and even though it usually only took her about fifteen minutes, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer for it to clear up.
Anna went to her front closet and took out a long black jacket that came down past her knees. She dug around in the bottom of the closet and managed to find a pair of white winter gloves and a pair of big, ugly yellow boots that came up to meet her jacket. She jammed the boots on over her sneakers and zipped them up over her jeans. After wrapping a scarf around her face and pulling her hood down as far as it would go, Anna was ready to brave the weather outside.
As Anna walked slowly down the street, terrified that the rain might touch her skin, she couldn’t help but smile ironically to herself; she could remember a time, long ago, when she actually liked the rain. Now, it was one of the few things that could stop her dead in her tracks.
Anna trekked slowly down the sidewalk towards school. But when she got to the end of the block, she stopped cold. Water was rushing down the gutter in front of her at an incredibly quick pace. Anna eyed the water suspiciously, trying to determine if she would be able to jump safely across it without getting wet.
When she was younger, Anna had heard many legends about vampires. But since she wasn’t one at the time, she’d never paid much attention. One myth she did remember, however, was that vampires couldn’t cross running water. This was only partially true, she’s discovered. Anna could, in fact, cross over running water, and she could even survive if she touched it. It was not, however, a pleasant experience. It wasn’t painful exactly – more like a tightening in her chest that made it all but impossible to breathe. At least, that was how it felt when she was attempting to cross small streams of flowing water like the one in front of her. When it came to actual rivers – well, she didn’t want to think about that.
Touching it, on the other hand, was painful. If it hit her skin, she felt a sharp, intense pain, like being pricked with a needle. Anna remembered how upset she’d been when she realized that rain actually counted as running water. Not long after she’d become a vampire, Anna had been caught in an unexpected summer rainstorm. The bonnet she’d been wearing hadn’t been nearly enough to protect her face, and the thin lace gloves had soaked through in a matter of seconds. Each raindrop stung as it hit her bare skin, and by the time she got home, her face and hands positively ached, and the pain had lasted for the rest of the day. Not only had the pain been all but unbearable, but every place the water had hit turned bright red and stayed that way for hours. This experience had been enough for Anna. She quickly learned her lesson, and after that was very careful not to touch running water under any circumstances. She now only took baths, and the invention of hand-sanitizer had been one of the best things that had ever happened as far as she was concerned.
Today was different, however. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Anna had somewhere she needed to be: she had to get to school. She thought about not going – just writing herself a note – but she knew it’d never work. Eventually someone might get suspicious. So here she was, braving the storm, trying to get to school.
What was normally a quick, fifteen minute walk from Anna’s apartment to school took almost twice as long today. She walked slowly and carefully, trying not to splash any water as she walked down the street. But it was the gutters that were the real problem for her. Every time she came to one, she stopped, steeling her nerves against the tightness in her chest that she knew would come. She’d jump as high and as far over these streams of rushing water as she could. But even with all that jumping, the choking tightness passed over her. By the time she got to school, Anna was exhausted, both mentally and physically. That kind of stress could really take a lot out of a person!
Anna breathed a big sigh of relief as she passed through the school doors. Now that she was out of the rain, she was safe. The rain could no longer hit her, and any water she had left on her jacket was no longer running – she could finally rest easy. She pushed back the sleeve of her raincoat and checked her watch. It was 7:58 – she only had two minutes to get to class. Even still, she decided to make a quick stop at her locker; there was no point in taking her wet raincoat to class.
She folded her jacket up and stuffed it in the bottom of her locker. Then, leaning against the one next to hers, Anna managed to pull off her bumblebee-yellow boots, which she set on top of her jacket with the souls facing up. And without further ado, she headed towards Room 122A.
Anna walked towards the classroom already six minutes late. She’d been a minute or two late before, but since her first day she’d never been this late. She hurried down the hall, her shoes squeaking almost imperceptibly on the wet linoleum as she went. She didn’t really care enough to make them stop; all she was worried about right now was getting to class before she was any later.
Anna could hear a lot of loud chattering as she approached the door. A good sign, she thought to herself. Still, she opened the door as quietly as she could, wishing she could be invisible. Despite her best efforts, however, the door creaked open loudly. In fact, opening it slowly seemed to have made it worse! She hadn’t even opened it all the way when she realized that the room had gone silent.
She walked into the room and experienced a slight panic as she saw that all eyes were trained on her. But just as suddenly, everyone turned away, resuming their conversations. She realized with a surge of relief that they were all waiting to see if she was Mrs. Boyd, who, miraculously enough, still hadn’t shown up yet.
Anna threaded her way through the desks and sat down, exchanging quick hellos with Summer.
“I thought you weren’t going to make it for a minute there.” Summer said, smiling.
“It’s because of all that rain outside,” Anna replied in disgust.
“I know.” Summer told her, sounding way too amused.
Anna turned sharply towards her. What exactly did Summer know? Seeing the look on Anna’s face, Summer quickly continued. “I mean, it’s really pouring.”
“It is! It’s horrible!” Try as she might, Anna was unable to hide her disdain.
Summer just laughed knowingly, and Anna couldn’t help wondering why.
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