Who Am I?

Who Am I ?

By MayaLucille Carmichael King

For my Little Family

Copyright 2013 Maple Leaf Project, Brattleboro, VT

Chapter 1 Me

“NO! NO! WHAT! SHE CAN’T!”----That was my mom (my real mom)… I died when I was an infant and never realized I had.

My name is Ellana but everyone calls me “Elee” or “L” for short. I live in the (as some people call it) “Ghost World”.

“El! Are you ready for school yet! It’s been half an hour!”

“Be right down Mom!”

As you can tell that was my mom…or I thought she was my mom…but that’s not important yet.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Getting dressed and I obviously have to brush my teeth,” I replied.

“Oh hi Anna!” I heard my mom say.

“Hey A!” … “Hey E!” That’s what me and my best friend Anna call each other (A and E). We have known each other since birth(… I mean death…I guess?) and have the same birthday. She has blue eyes, wavy brown hair, her nails are always painted lime green with blue polka dots, and she is always sun tanning. We live in San Francisco, California (in the ghost world they have all the same countries and states.) I have an extremely, extremely overweight cat. I got him when I was four years old and I named him Chubbs. Anna has an extremely, extremely skinny cat whose name is Bonesy (she also got him when she was four.)

I skip down the stairs and find Charlie(my brother), Anna, and Mom all at the breakfast table eating (Anna always eats breakfast at our house because both of her moms go to work early and Leila’s daycare starts early, too. Leila is only a year old, by the way. As usual Dad’s not there (he always goes to work early, but Mom only has to get to work at 12:00 pm, and stays until 3:00 pm.)

Anna and I head off to school. On the way she asks me about Terence, my crush.

“As cute as always!” I answer.

Anna get to school around 8:00 am. We go straight to our seats. It’s the start of a new year, a crazy year at that. Julie is sitting across from us. Julie… I don’t know where to start. Anna, Julie and I have known each other since pre-K. Julie has dark skin, curly brown hair, chocolate eyes, and man, she is TALL!

“HEY,” she calls.

“What’s up?” we both reply.

We all have a huge group hug and then start class.

“Hello class,” our teacher, Mrs. Ranks, says.

“Hello, Mrs. Ranks,” we all call back.

“So…how was everyone’s summer?” she says cheerfully. We go around the room and say how it went.

She told us that this year we were going to be learning about humans? ... which obviously none of us knew what they were. She started telling us about them and that’s when I got really interested…

Chapter 2 Who am I?

The rest of the day kind of dragged on. We did mostly old stuff like scare yourself, and how to be scary, math literacy, how to pull an eyeball out of its socket, gym, French, art, dance---that kind of stuff. For the next week we learned more and more about humans, which was super, super fun! A few days later we started learning about human parents.

Chapter 3 Oh Now I Get It!

I kept hinting around to my parents about humans, but they just kept putting it off.

Mom said, “Elle, these questions you keep asking about, they’re not really important, so just leave it alone.”

That night I thought about what my mom had said. It almost seemed like she had felt threatened, or something.

I got really annoyed so I stared doing my own research…I went to Boogle Images and found pictures of humans with their kids and that’s when something really, really freaky happened.

Chapter 4 I Don’t Get It!

I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or not. I stare blankly at the picture on the screen. I can’t breathe I feel like the walls are caving in and falling on me , like I could just ---just---die! Was that, it couldn’t be it was…me?! I scroll my mouse to the edge of the screen, click the X, and everything goes black.

Chapter 5 What Happened?

I open my eyes a bit. Where am I? Was what I saw all just a dream? It smelled weird! Was I in a gothpital?

I sit up quickly to see Mom, Dad, Charlie, Anna, Leila, and Anna’s moms Pat and Katy. I also see a woman in a black dress and black makeup. It must be a nurse.

I am in a gothpital! Why am I here? My head hurts. Did I faint?

“Um…W-W-What happened?” I choke out.

“You fainted,” my mom answers. “You were on the computer.”

“So it wasn’t a dream,” I mutter.

“What?” my mom says.

“Oh, never mind,” I answer. All of a sudden I’m really hungry, and really thirsty!

“Can we go eat?!” I blurt out.

”Um., sure,” my mom answers.

Chapter 6 Are You OK?

We go to the cafeteria. It’s noisy and crowded.

“Can we eat in the room?” I ask.

“Sure,”” Anna says.

We come back with everything on a cart. I feel dizzy. Anna and I sit on my bed.

Julie, Catherine, and Betty are coming soon. Catherine was Julie’s sister and

Betty was Julie’s mom.

Ten minutes later Julie, Catherine (Catherine’s five years old) and Betty all come

rushing through the door.

“Are you OK?”, they all blurt out at once .

“Oh yeah,” I try to say but Mom interrupts, saying, “She’s fine. She fainted and

got knocked out.

“Um, Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have a moment to talk to talk to Charlie, Anna, and Julie alone?” Mom

hesitates for a moment and then agrees.

Chapter 7 PROMISE?

“Can I trust you all with something really um…secret?” I asked.

“Yeah sure!” everyone agreed.

“Well the other day after we were studying humans I went on the computer to

look up human parents well…I saw myself, like a picture of me, and a picture of some

other people who I think are my parents. And that’s when I fainted. Promise you won’t

tell anyone?”

“Well, that’s just the Earth World.” Said Anna. I saw Charlie shoot anna a look

that seemed to say, “Shut up, Anna!”

“Wait---you guys know about that? I said. I felt many emotions run through my

body--- anger, confusion, sadness, and loneliness--- all at the same time. “What’s going

on, you guys?”

“Well, you’re the only one in the whole Ghost World who has been adopted from

The Earth World.” Said Charlie.

Chapter 8 SO…

“Will you guys help me find out more information?” I asked.

“I guess so, but when?” Said Julie.

“Well, later, at my house!” I blurted out.

“Yeah our parents work late so it would be easy,” suggested Charlie.

We all agreed and we were ready to find out the truth.

Chapter 9 Ready?

For the next few weeks all we found were more of the same picture but then…we

saw a big paragraph all about my death! I knew I had always felt a little something---

something---something---missing, I guess, but I never really thought it would be this big.

Chapter 10 Here’s How IT went

Apparently right when I came into the world I died. I came straight to the Ghost

World and got adopted by my “parents”. I don’t think Charlie was adopted, but who

knows? We searched for a few hours and then watched some TV.

Chapter 11 HIM!

In humans class today it was so hard to focus! Because of Terence. You know your first real crush (when you’re actually allowed to date.) We kept staring at each other, blushing and looking away. He is SO cute! His name is Terence.

Chapter 12 EXPLANATION PLEASE!

Later at lunch Anna, Julie, and I met up at Lorraine’s pizza hut and they forced me to tell them all about him, so I started from when I first heard his name to right then.

“Well since we are sharing our crush I might as well tell you,” said Julie. “Starting today I have a girlfriend!”

“Really! When can we meet her?”

“Well I was wondering if I could invite her over after school tomorrow to help us search?”

“Um, sure, if she promises to keep it a secret.”

Chapter 13 YES

Today after class Terence came over to me and asked me out! (I said yes!) YAY! I also invited him over to help us search after school. Now there were six people in our group helping us search. We did find what we were looking for though. We found out more about my Earth parents, like one year after I died they had another baby who is now 15 years old! And we found out that we can travel through a portal that can bring us to the outside world, but only one person can see all of us. It could be someone who can help us or just a random person. So we tried it.

Chapter 14 So This is It

Well the one person who could see us was my Earth sister. But it wasn’t so pleasant the way she found out. She was home sitting on her bed, doing homework, when all of a sudden there were six teenagers standing above her. First she said some words I am not going to repeat and then she was done. When we first told her the story she didn’t believe us but then she tried to touch us…

Chapter 15 Can You Help?

I found out her name is Samantha, but every one calls her Sammy,

“Well I can see the resemblance,” Ke-ke, Julie’s girl friend, said.

I also found out my mom’s mom’s name is Chaya. Our mom and dad are divorced, apparently.

“Can you and will you help us?” I asked.

Chapter 16 So That’s Her

I heard the door open in the next room.

“Hey, Sammy!” I heard a woman’s voice say.

“Oh. That must be Mom.” said Sammy. “You guys stay here,” she whispered.

Sammy left the room, and everyone gave each other nervous glances.

“It’s OK guys, I’m fine.” I reassured them.

I heard the woman (or should I call her Mom?) and Sammy talking.

“Hey Mom, can I go to Gallery Walk tonight?” asked Sammy.

“Yeah, sure. I’m going to my high school reunion, and you’re sleeping at Kaylee’s tonight.

“OK, cool. Thanks, Mom.”

Chapter 17 Gallery Walk

Sammy came back in the room, and told us what Gallery Walk is. “It’s a place where you can see art and hang out,” she explained.

“So, what town are we in, anyway?” I asked.

“Brattleboro, Vermont,” she answered.

“So, what should we do during Gallery Walk?” asked Terrance.

“Just follow me, and if you really have to ask me a question, then do.”

“OK,” we all said.

Gallery Walk was really fun. We got to see all of Sammy’s friends. At about 9:30 Sammy and Kaylee went to Kaylee’s house, and we followed.

Chapter 18 Sleepover!

All night they did magazine quizzes and talked about boys. We all hung out in the hot tub downstairs.

“So, how do you think meeting your mother will be like?” Anna asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

“ What do you think knowing that we’re not going to be real siblings?” Charlie asked.

“We’re always going to be real siblings, Charlie.” I answered.

Chapter 19 That’s Her

The next morning Mom came and picked Sammy up from Kaylee’s house, along with all of us (of course she couldn’t see us).

When we got back to the house we followed Sammy straight into her room.

“So, how do we get my mom to actually see you?” Sammy questioned.

“Maybe you could be my voice—I could say something to you, and you could repeat what I say to Mom.”

Sammy said, “Cool.”

Chapter 20 Very Funny

Sammy tried explaining everything to Mom, but it didn’t go quite as we planned. At first, I said “Tell her that I’m her daughter, and that I died when I was an infant, and that there’s a Ghost World that I live in.”

“Sammy, stop it, you’re freaking me out!” exclaimed Mom.

“How do we get her to believe me?” asked Sammy.

“I don’t know.” I replied. “How about I wear a hat, or something?”

“Hold on one second, Mom.” Sammy ran to get a hat, and I put it on.

“Sammy, stop it! Stop it right now!” said Mom in a terrified voice.

“Maybe she could hear you if you yelled really loud,” suggested Sammy. So I tried it, and it worked!

Chapter 21 Listen, Mom

“LISTEN MOM: I DON’T KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME OR NOT, BUT IF YOU CAN, SAMMY’S NOT LYING. I CAME HERE FROM THE GHOST WORLD, AND EVEN THOUGH YOU CAN’T SEE ME, I CAN SEE YOU, AND I LOVE YOU,” I yelled.

All of a sudden I realized she could see me. She ran up and hugged me. Then she looked at my face. I wasn’t alive, but I was solid.

Chapter 22 Going Back

We knew that we had to go back. Our parents were probably worried. I hugged my sister and mom and we left. We ducked through the portal, and suddenly we were back on my bed, watching TV. I heard the door open and close, and I heard my mom and dad’s voices call up the stairs, “Hi guys! We’re home!”

So five days in Earth World is only one day in Ghost World? I could see all my friends had the same thought.

And now I know who I really am.