Volume Four

Miracles do come true
Mine did, never thought it would
My miracle came true
When I met you
When I met you

Piper Finnegan woke up to a brand new, not-so-exciting day. She unplugged her earphones off. She had fallen asleep again while listening to Jack Austin’s music, like she always had every night.

Bloody Monday,she gritted her teeth, looking at her digital alarm clock.

Piper slid off of her bed, went straight to bath, did her every day (and very tiring) routine. She tied her hair into a single braid, wore her glasses, and rummaged her closet for comfortable (which meant baggy) clothes. After pulling on a gray sweater and jeans, Piper went downstairs to the kitchen for instant breakfast.

As usual, her mother was already out for work. It wasn’t that her mother was a workaholic who didn’t give a damn; money was just that important to the Finnegan family.

Why, well, you’ll find out soon enough.

Piper walked to school every day. It wasn’t much of a big deal. They lived in a small town, and Knoxcrest Academy was only a few blocks away.

As she was walking, a group of rich kids riding an open-top car, or whatever it is that you call those kinds of cars, passed. They were the popular teenagers from her school, Delaney Penn’s circle of friends. Delaney’s family was apparently the richest in this small town of Knoxcrest.

Piper wondered amusedly who among those kids were Delaney’s real friends. She bet they only befriended her because she had a mansion with an Olympic-sized pool and a mini-golf course.

That was another one of Piper’s reasons why she was friendless.

Piper would rather be alone with no one to share lunch boxes with, with no one to talk with at school, than to be like Delaney who believed she actually had real friends.

Poor, poor, Delaney Penn.

She might be filthy stinking rich and filthy stinking popular around school, but happiness is not measured by wealth or power or fame. She will never be happy with the kind of life she was living.

Piper looked up, heavenward, hoping for snow to come down soon. It snowed really early in Knoxcrest, even though it was only in the last week of October.

She loved snow.

~

Fox-faced didn’t come to class, Piper noticed.

“Look who came in early today,” Delaney began with her usual sneer. “Piper Finnegan, teenage prostitute. Two people saw you last night—doing your job, I guess.”

Piper smiled at her, annoying Delaney to the core. “Good morning, Delaney Penn and company.” She took her seat on the left most corner of the room, nearest the window. Piper loved looking outside.

“Good morning, Delaney Penn and company,” Delaney mocked exaggeratively, and her friends laughed. “You probably had a good night yesterday, didn’t you? Slept well in the arms of some rich thirty year old man?”

“Paid anyone for better grades lately?” Piper simply asked.

Some of their classmates turned to look at Delaney, infuriating her. “I don’t pay anyone for better grades, okay?”

“Oh, sorry, right,” Piper continued, not looking at her. “Your dad does.”

“You tramp!”

Piper just smiled at that. “Good to know you’re expanding your vocabulary. Up until recently, you’ve only called me either slut or whore. Now you’re calling me names synonymous to them. Very good, Blondie.”

Surprisingly, half of the class—even Delaney’s friends—chuckled.

Delaney shut up and went back to her seat.

“That was a good one,” Hannabeth Morgann said with her thick British accent. She was part British. “That ought to teach that hare-brained bitch a lesson.”

Piper looked at her seatmate. Hannabeth rarely spoke in class; heck, she rarely attended, and yet she had high marks on every subject. She wasn’t the nerdy type, though. She wore thick eyeliner under her cat-like green eyes, her lips were the colour of blood red, and she seemed to never run out of black clothes.

Hannabeth played with her left ear piercing as she watched Delaney in amusement. “She’s fucking crying,” she scoffed. “What a twat.”

Piper just looked at her. This was the first time someone talked to her so casually.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” Hannabeth asked, smiling warmly. “Oh, right. We haven’t been talking, even though we’ve been seatmates for half a year now.” She shook Piper’s hand and said, “I’m Hannabeth. You can call me Hanna.”

“Why talk to me now?” was Piper’s answer, confused.

“Obviously, I’m not quite the people-person. But I like you; you’ve got spunk. I heard you managed to put Travis Gracely on suspension. Too bad I didn’t come to class yesterday, goddammit.”

Piper chuckled slightly. “You should have seen his face when I tore his bills into pieces.”

“Priceless, I bet.”

Piper and Hannabeth talked and talked (or made fun of everyone in Delaney’s circle) until their Math teacher arrived for class, and afterwards, they ate lunch together during break. For the first time in school, Piper didn’t go to the Lib.

Piper made her first real friend that morning.

~

“I’ll be going on ahead,” Piper told Hanna as she packed her stuff back into her bag. “I’m going somewhere.”

Hanna nodded and smiled. “See you tomorrow, Piper.”

Piper laughed. It seemed so funny whenever Hanna said her name. It always came out as ‘Pi-pah’ because of her accent.

“Forgive my accent,” Hanna laughed as well.

They said their goodbyes to each other, and Piper went on ahead. She looked at her watch. They’d been dismissed thirty minutes past their usual dismissal time, and Piper was already late for another one of her five part-time jobs.

She walked quickly, and just as she was about to turn left, she hit someone. She looked up, glared at whoever it was who wasn’t paying attention to his or her way.

It was a tall guy, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He looked familiar.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, smiling at her, and, Piper’s heart raced, winked at her. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Piper snapped out of it and reverted back into her usual self. “I’m fine. Next time, watch where you’re going.”

She brushed past him, and then plugged in her earphones. Miracles, Jack’s song, played, and for a moment, she felt weird.

He looks awfully familiar, she mused, frowning.

~

The brown-haired boy glanced at her one last time, until she went out of the school entrance door. He then hurried on to the Records Office, where he was supposed to pass his requirements.

“Hello,” he greeted the Records Office staff. “I’m here to pass my final requirements.”

“Enrolment form?” the staff lady said kindly.

He handed her everything. After a few minutes, the staff lady gave him his official schedule.

“Welcome to Knoxcrest Academy…” she continued, and then read out his name aloud. “…Jack Austin.”

Jack nodded in gratitude before he left the office.

Tomorrow was officially the first day of his class—in the middle of the second semester, that is.