TOPIA “Second to the right, and straight on till
morning.”
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to
the Neverland.
Episode 1
The school bell rang, piercing into my
daydream and bringing me back to
awareness. I had been enjoying, I’m sure, a
Technicolor fantasy, filled with unicorns
shooting rainbows out their butts. But
wherever my dreams had led me, I was back
to reality and had no immediate recollection
as to what I had been fantasizing about.
The shrieking bell indicated the scintillating
world of Calculus had come to an end.
“Remember…you will have a pop quiz
tomorrow on Chapter Seven,” I heard Miss
Smellie yell over the chattering of students.
Go ahead and laugh, but I swear… that’s her
name. Miss Lisa Smellie. And yes, all the
kids snickered the first two weeks of school,
but then it got old. Seriously, teenagers
have a more sophisticated humor than
adults give us credit for. Now, she was just
good ol’ Miss Smellie. Who gave not so
surprising pop quizzes.
I never understood how it could be a pop
quiz when we were told about it ahead of
time. It seemed to take all the fun out of
the surprise. It’s like adults really don’t trust
us to do the studying, so they try to trick us
with the terror of a pop quiz, only to not be
a trick at all. It was reverse psychology at
its worst. I pondered this theory as I picked
up my books and loaded them in my
backpack. Not only was Calculus at an end,
but so was the school day and I was glad.
As I walked by Miss Smellie’s desk, she
shot me a smile. “See you tomorrow,
Charlotte.”
“Charlie,” I reminded her. For what felt like
the hundredth time.
“Right…sorry.” She gave me a lovely
showing of sparkling white teeth. “Charlie.”
I returned her smile and started to turn
toward the door when I caught a subtle
movement on her face. I focused my gaze
on her and watched as her countenance
seemed to melt away. Except, it didn’t
actually melt away completely, but morphed
into something else. Within seconds, her
face had completely transformed. Gone was
her light brown hair, slightly round but
tanned face and blue eyes. In its place was
pale skin that shimmered like crushed
diamonds. Her liquid silver eyes were large
and slanted. Her hair was now platinum
blond, falling long over her shoulders. She
was very beautiful in an ethereal way and
still smiling at me.

“Is something wrong, Charlie?”
I vaguely heard her speaking to me but I
was transfixed by her dazzling guise. I kept
up my smile, hoping that I wasn’t giving
away any physical reaction to her sudden
change in appearance. “Nothing wrong.
Have a great night, Miss Smellie.”
“You too. Don’t forget the pop quiz.” With
that, her angelically pale skin morphed
again, and the normal, average looking Miss
Smellie was back.
Shooting her a wave with my hand, I turned
around and walked out of the classroom. I
mentally shrugged my shoulders. It was not
uncommon for me to see people’s faces
morph into something else. Sometimes it
was hauntingly beautiful, like it had been
just now with Miss Smellie. Sometimes a
face would percolate into a vestige of pure
evil and scare the living daylights out of me.
I had no idea why I could see it and I was
pretty sure no one else could. But the truth
of the matter was I had been seeing
transitional faces since I witnessed my
parents being killed over four years ago.
Stepping out into the hallway, I looked
around at all of my classmates as they
prepared to go home for the day. Happy,
shiny faces. Just like me. We smile on the
outside, but the inside is often a different
story. I’ve heard before, courtesy of my
state mandated therapy, that we often get
so wrapped up in our own misery, we fail to
notice it in others. I think that’s true and I’d
take it one step further. People try to wrap
themselves up in so much external fantasy,
they don’t realize the depths of their own
misery. They simply ignore it.
Regardless of how others view me, I am
well versed in my own suffering. I lost my
parents when I was thirteen years old.
Tragic, I know.
They were murdered during a home
invasion. Shocking, you say? I couldn’t agree
more.
Turned away by my only living relatives, I
was forced to become a ward of the State
of New York. Can it get any sadder?
Probably not.
That is, unless you consider the fact that
not one single foster family in the entire
metropolitan area of New York City wanted
me either. I was labeled “a lost cause”. My
therapist said the seven months I refused to
speak after my parents’ murders caused
prospective foster families to be a little “gun
shy” around me. Poor choice of words if you
ask me…considering my parents were killed
by a gun.
I know it’s hard to believe but I have always
been a “glass half full” kinda girl. It’s just
my nature. Yay me! And so, after seven
months of silence, I decided to open up and
become part of the real world again. And by
real word, I mean I left the comforts of the
Presbyterian Hospital psychiatric unit and
became a member of St. Christopher’s
Resident Treatment Facility. Though my
psychiatric issues were diagnosed as
nothing more than a deep, situational
depression following my parents’ brutal
murders, it made me damaged goods and
unadoptable.
I stopped at my locker to pick up a few
more books I would need for homework that
night. Hopefully, I would be able to use the
group home’s community laptop as I needed
to do some research for a history paper.
What kids did before Wikipedia, I’ll never
know.
I gave a passing glance at the inside of my
locker. It was pristine. Nothing but school
books neatly stacked in a row. No pictures
of me and my BFF’s. No love notes from
the high school quarterback. There was
nothing that would identify me as a typical
senior in high school. It said a lot about my
life.
Not that that my life was significantly
lacking. I’m sure I could have my posse of
BFF’s and a cute boy to date if I wanted. I
just didn’t want to put my energy there.
Instead, I put all of my energy into two
things. Studying to get good grades, which
would be my ticket to college. And trying to
stay out of fights.
Weird, right? I was a brainiac. Top of my
class smart. But I had a dark side. I loved to
fight. And not just girlie hair pulling fights
because Samantha looked at Josie’s
boyfriend with unfettered lust in her eyes.
I’m talking about hard core, knuckle brawling
fights that had meaning and depth. It was
my calling…to beat the hell out of those that
deserved it.

So, it would be no surprise to my therapist,
or the school principal, Dr. Tinesdale, that I
naturally heard the sounds of a scuffle in
progress as I was walking down the almost
empty school hall. I believe Dr. Tinesdale
once said to me, “Trouble always seems to
find you, Charlie.” I appreciated the fact he
didn’t say that I was the one courting
trouble but rather it came looking for me.