All Is Changed

The slightly windy spell of the previous week was over; the sun was shining brightly as Madeleine Shay hurried across the road to her favorite bookstore, too brightly for 9am in the morning, she thought. The hood of her sweater was up to keep her hair from blowing across her face. The weather might have warmed up, but the wind off the East River could still be brutal. It carried with it a faint chemical smell, mixed with the smell of rot, gasoline, and pastries from the bakery down the street.

Olive was waiting for her in front of the bookstore along with a couple of other book freaks like her, her carrier bag slung across her shoulder “Hey” she said as Maddie reached her “I've been waiting ages for you. The new books aren't going to buy themselves."

"Sorry, sorry" Maddie replied, slightly out of breath "My dad wouldn't let me go out without taking this" she raised an electric zapper up and rolled her eyes "For 'security reasons' he said. Big whup"

Olive struggled against the throng of people in front of the closed bookstore "Yeah, you should. There's been crazy killings and disappearances these past few days. Nothing is too much security"

Maddie shushed her friend as an old, rotund man came to the front of the store "Okay, people" He yelled above the noise of the mob "The store would be open soon. Now, the books in here are limited editions, and they are going for half their usual price. But only for an hour. Now I want you all to go in in an orderly fashion. No pushing or shoving around. No fighting and please, no destruction of our property." He brought out a set of keys and inserted it into the lock. Maddie and Olive pushed against the mob as the man turned the lock, and were among the first people to enter the store as the old man pushed the doors open.

Immediately, Maddie began to look around for the limited edition of Werewolf Diaries: Alpha Male she'd been longing to get. Her eyes roamed the bookshelves as she was pushed and shoved by people. She looked around and saw no sign of Olive. Sighing, she pulled the drawers of her hoodie tighter and ran to the Fantasy Section of the bookstore, eyes still searching for the book.

Sighting one copy of Werewolf Diaries: Alpha Male's Limited Edition, she raced towards the shelves and stretched her hand towards it, but her outstretched hand was hit rudely by another shopper, who grabbed the copy and dashed off without uttering any word of apology.

Grunting in pain, Maddie looked around for another copy. She saw one next to a pudgy bespectacled boy and dashed towards it, her eyes on the book. Without paying attention to anyone else around her, she collided with something hard and heard a harried "sorry" before hitting the ground elbows first.

Groaning in pain, she covered her head with her arms in an effort to avoid being stampeded to death, then saw a hand stretch towards her. Gratefully Maddie grabbed it and was pulled up. The person turned out to be a tall, blonde teenage boy with a ponytail. His eyes regarded her with a hostile disposition, and they seemed to pierce her brain with their bright, emerald-green light. And in his hand was a three-foot long sword. Maddie's eyes widened at the sight of it.

"You should watch where you're going." He mumbled and took off, brandishing the sword. The mob around him seemed oblivious to the fact that a boy was wielding a sword, and continued shoving each other around.

Maddie momentarily forgot about her book, staring at the boy's retreating back as he sprinted out of the bookstore, clearly in pursuit of something. She was jarred back to reality when Olive shouted her name, waving her own book and beaming.

"I got it! I got my book" She yelled, then stopped when she saw Maddie's face "What's wrong?"

"Is it me or did a boy just walk out of the store with a sword?"

Olive glanced behind her, then back at Maddie "What boy?"

"He was..." Maddie looked at Olive, then realised that her friend would not understand and would just call her crazy "Never mind, Let's get our books and go." She said, then grabbed her limited edition and headed to the counter to pay.

Later, in a cab heading home, Olive said to Clary. "Did you really see a boy with a sword in there?"

"No," Maddie lied "I must have imagined it. The crowd there was tough"

Olive stared at her friend "Look, you know you can tell me anything, right?"

Clary hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Sure, Olive," she said. "I know I can."

****

"I think," Olive said, curled up on the couch and waving a potato chip at the other girl "That you've read that book more times than I've had to dye my hair this month"

Maddie squinted at her over the top of her old-edition of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, pushing her glasses up her nose "Well I'm not done reading it yet"

Olive scoffed "When will you be done? When the book ends its misery by committing suicide?"

Maddie looked up and smirked. This was one of those fights two people who loved different genres of novels usually had, each on her high horse, insisting that her genre was better than the other. Between Maddie and her best friend it was more of an intelligent cerebral tussle than a fight. Their love of books was one of, or probably the only thing that binded the two girls together, perhaps other than the fact that they both had lost their mothers shortly after birth, and although Maddie preferred modern day fantasy books—her favorite being the Harry Potter series—to Olive's medieval books, nobody could deny that they were both avid readers.

Compared to Olive, Maddie lacked what other teenage girls her age admired in super models . Olive was very tall and curvy, with white-blonde hair, stormy grey eyes, deep dimples and a pointed nose that she knew just when to wrinkle to get people to do her bidding. On the other hand, Maddie was short, too short for her fifteen years, and was gifted with carroty-red, tightly curled hair, and even redder eyebrows. When she was young and was always teased at school because she was a redhead, her dad usually comforted her by saying her hair had character. But Maddie highly doubted that her headful of tumble-down, red curls was beautiful. Throw in big eyes behind even bigger glasses and a face full of freckles, and Maddie was a ragdoll to Olive's Barbie doll.

"At least I wouldn't be caught dead walking around with one of those," she wagged a finger at Olive's Joan Aiken book "outdated pathetic excuse for a novel"

Olive gasped in mock indignation, her fingers splayed on her chest "They're not outdated. This book was written in 1927! How dare you, Shay?" She threw a pillow at Maddie as the both of them burst out in laughter.

The sound of the key turning in the front door made both girls pause in their laughter. Hastily they rearranged themselves on the couch and tried to look as if they were immersed in their separate books.

The door opened with a thump. It was Paul, Maddie's father, his arms full of what looked like big square pieces of pasteboard. When he set them down, Maddie saw that they were cardboard boxes that were folded flat. He glanced up at them with a tired smile.

"Hey, dad"

"Hey, Maddie's dad"

"Girls" Paul said and straightened his lanky frame with a groan. He was decked out in his usual uniform: old, washed-out blue Jeans, round-necked T-shirt with corny quotes (This one read: Don't Mess With The Rock-Solid Abs) and a pair of beat-up Jordans. His flyaway hair was curly and carrot-red like his daughter's.

"What are the boxes for?" Maddie asked.

His smile vanished. "I thought we should pack up some things," he said, carefully avoiding her gaze by walking into the kitchen.

"What things? Dad–" Maddie asked, leaving Olive on the couch and following her dad into the kitchen.

"Did you leave any breakfast for me?" Mark interjected, trying valiantly to change the subject.

"Dad!" Maddie yelled "Come on! What are the boxes for?"

"Can you let me eat breakfast first?"

Maddie folded her arms in defiance "No."

Mark let out a fatigued sigh, rolled his eyes up at the roof as if expecting a divine intervention, and crossed over to Maddie. Placing both hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes "Maddie, we're going on a vacation"

Maddie frowned "That's what this is about? We're going on vacation?" She shrugged her dad's hands off her shoulders "I don't get it. Why the big act? Why the cardboard boxes?"

"We," Mark looked past Maddie to the living room but it was empty. Olive had silently let herself out of the house.

"We might not be coming back anytime soon"

"Soon? Like how soon? Three weeks? The rest of the term?" Maddie asked.

"No. Soon like, maybe the rest of the year." Mark said tentatively, staring at her face.

"The rest of the year? Dad, no! I just started making friends here and you want me to leave again?"

"I know, Maddie–"

"No you don't!" Maddie yelled and walked out of the kitchen in indignation. "You cannot keep doing this to me! Every year we have to move because of some obsessive compulsion from you, and you won't even tell me why!"

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger "Maddie, you have to trust me on this one–"

"Maybe I'd trust you more if you'd trust me too and tell me the truth!"

"Madeleine!" Mark yelled "I am your father and you will do what I say as long as you're under my roof"

Panting, they both stared at each other. Maddie had never been filled with so much rage as much as she was now. Every single year since she was ten they'd move from one city to another: New Jersey, Boston, Trenton, New York, and now her dad was planning to move them from New York again. Every year she'd been forced to make new friends and be the new girl at a whole new school. Not this time though.

"Not this time, dad. If you won't tell me why we're moving, then I'm not moving with you" She said and stormed out of the house admits yells of her name.