The Dark Place Chronicles: The Shadow Land

By Dave Wallace

When Penelope meets the mysterious and dangerous Vara in her Senior year, she is introduced into the real world of magic and death that lies beneath her ordinary life of petty fear and humiliation. Can Vara turn her around in time to face those of the Dökkálfar, the Dark Elves, who want to kill her before she becomes Queen of the Light Elves? And what of the even more terrible thing that lurks in the darkness; can even Vara and Penelope combined defeat it before it kills them and destroys Los Angeles?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Wallace
• Release date: Jul 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310951275

Dave Wallace

I'm the son of F.L. Wallace, a sci-fi/mystery writer of the 1950s. The Master of Izindi is my first novel, with another fantasy novel tentatively titled "The Dark Place" on the way.

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The Dark Place Chronicles: The Shadow Land

by

David Wallace

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Mom. I love and miss you every day. Thanks for encouraging me to write this book.  Copyright Dave N. Wallace, July 2016, all rights reserved. No reproduction or retransmission of the contents of this book without express written permission.

Chapter 1

I hate L.A. Well, maybe hate is an exaggeration, but I certainly don't feel the way I did about my real home, a small village in the Peleponesian peninsula in the land where gods and heroes used to walk. Of course, the best days of Greece were long over, but perhaps that's why I loved it so. It was old and safe, unchanging in a way, yet with just enough new things to keep me happy.

But nothing lasts forever, or so I thought, and even Greece changed. We had traded in paradise for our newer home in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, cold, crowded, and crime-ridden, filthy and wholly inferior to our village. I could have taken school there; in Greece, but Mom and Dad were insistent. Los Angeles or bust it seemed.

It was the fall term at the start of my last year in high school in that benighted place. A year like any other, or so I thought.

Los Angeles was getting its first significant rainfall in months that day, far too early for the weathermen’s liking. Simply put, it never rained in early September in L.A, but this year it did. And the city responded as it usually does to such things; with fevered newscasts of impending doom, and a bevy of traffic accidents, along with more than a few swift water rescues in the city’s concrete lined rivers.

My school, the marvelously misnamed Angel's High, situated nearer to the hills than to the beach, was getting especially hard hit. Rain and wind were funneled down through the hills, pummeling the school and any teachers or students unfortunate enough to be outside. Mom had dropped me off, as she normally did when it rains, but there was still the dozen yards or so to the front entrance. I forged my way through the rain and wind, my heavy and unfashionable raincoat and my large pink umbrella doing very little to keep me dry.

Passing through the door into the front hallway, I entered a halfway zone where the other kids were busy shaking off the rain and trying to get warm. Some actually succeeded, while others, like Alex and Lisa, didn’t, looking soaked and miserable. Alex's fake smile wasn't working just then; evidently water and cold combined to put even him out of my misery. But he warmed up pretty quickly, unfortunately.

I had quickly found my locker, avoiding the nearby Harpies, our name for the rich girls, who fortunately were far too interested in looking popular to waste time paying any attention to the likes of me. I ditched my raincoat and umbrella in my locker, and hefted my backpack back over my shoulder. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, and was itself slightly wet, but I never left any of my books in my locker.

Relax, Penelope, Alex said with a big smile. Everything's going to be alright.

Relax, I muttered. As a prophet, Alex ranked somewhere between Nostradamus and Neville Chamberlain. I'm thinking closer to Chamberlain.

Who's Chamberlain?

Oh, did I say that aloud? It did sort of fit in with my luck.

Lisa sighed a defeated sigh.

Bryan shrugged, unconvinced.

We're all together in one big happy boat! Alex continued, fake smile stretching wider, deciding this 'Chamberlain' person didn't merit any more of his personal attention.

Then the thunder rang out and the doors opened again, to reveal yet another soaked and bedraggled student, Louis, one of our clique.

Hopefully it's a really big boat, outfitted for the perfect storm. I said, looking at the poor guy. We're going to need it.

I considered. Maybe an ark?

We'll probably get one of the Titanic's lifeboats, the one without Leo. Lisa lamented.

The Fall term was nearly a month old, and already, I was hating it. It wasn’t that I was bullied a lot; unlike some of my clique, I wasn’t. I was simply ignored, or subjected to low-level cutting remarks when one of the Harpies or Cheerleaders deigned to notice me at all. That, I could mostly ignore. But it hurt more when a cute boy said something cruel. Mostly, that would be one of the jocks, when they could be bothered. Most of them couldn't, or genuinely didn't care about me one way or the other, and that somehow hurt more.

Alex, on the other hand, had himself a bit more of a problem. Well, he had quite a few problems, being skinny, not all that good looking, and possessed of absolutely no athletic ability whatsoever, as well as a somewhat unfortunately sarcastic personality. Hence the fake jocularity, which had to be leading somewhere I didn't want to go. Fortunately, I didn't have to suffer the punchline of whatever joke he was about to spring upon us when George suddenly interrupted interrupted his grand moment of the morning by pushing through us silently. That was it, no apology, no nothing. He had seen his goal for the moment, Sandra, the head cheerleader, and that was all his tiny mind could process. Okay, I was probably doing him an injustice because I hated him. He wasn't stupid, just ignorant of anything not related to George and his future, something most of us were probably guilty of at one point or another.

In a fit of good timing and even better taste, knowing Alex and the sort of thing he'd say, and what George would do to him in response, the front doors suddenly burst open again with a thunderclap and a brilliant flash of lightning. That was way too close for my liking. At first it seemed merely that an exceptionally powerful gust of wind had blown them open, and Mr. Williams, the principal, made toward them, to close them and stop the rain pouring in. Then he came to a stop as a girl appeared in the doorway.

I didn't know supermodels went to school! I observed faintly, blinded by the light that seemed to be shining off the girl.

What? Lisa asked, puzzled, staring at the girl.

A supermodel, Alex explained, almost drooling. They're often much smarter than most people give them credit for.

I made a face. Whatever.

I didn't much care about supermodels. All I knew was that I wasn't one, though I desperately wanted to be. But lucky me, I was on reasonably short, overweight, and my hair, while blonde, just didn't sit well like the new girl's did.

Cindy, (yeah, I was aware that probably wasn't her name), was tall, and somehow mesmerizing. Sue me, I'd only heard of Cindy Crawford, and this girl really didn't resemble her that much, except for the beatiful part. If my friends and I could vanish in a crowd of three, this girl would have stood out among the cheerleaders at a USC game. Her hair was blond and long, falling in waves down past her shoulders, and her face gave new meaning to the word beauty. As in fact did the rest of her; for she had a figure any of the girls at the school would have killed for. She really did look like a Swedish supermodel, or at least how I imagined they looked. 

Which fact did not go unnoticed by Sandra, or George. She noticed his slack-jawed gazed fixed, like that of every other boy in the place, and a few of the girls as well, on the newcomer, and delivered a sharp elbow to his ribs. Evidently she went to the same attention getting school as her boyfriend. I didn’t hear her comment to him over the rain, and lost all interest in that little drama as my attention returned to the new girl. She was wearing a black t-shirt with a strange design, and artfully torn jeans, with black running shoes. Strangely, she seemed not to be wet at all, despite having no visible protection from the rain. I looked around, about to comment on this to my friends, when she walked forward into the hall after a brief pause.

The floor of course was wet through and through, but there were portions where no student had yet tracked water. As she walked through an especially large puddle onto one such dry spot, my eyes narrowed as I noticed that she left no footprints. No water seemed to touch her, and she seemed to me to be as dry as she would have been during midsummer. I glanced to my friends to see if they had noticed, but they still seemed to be under her spell, slack-jawed as the rest. Evidently supermodels did indeed have super-powers beyond the ability to wear an almost non-existent bikini and look really hot.

Another flash of lightning followed her through through the still open doors, followed almost immediately by a huge thunderclap, indicating the bolt was very near, like the last one. Everyone blinked as if aroused from a deep slumber, and shook their heads, not at all startled by the huge noise. Mr. Williams moved quickly to shut the door, and the spell seemed to be over. As she drew near me, our new supermodel turned her head and seemed to gaze directly into my eyes. She smiled an enigmatic smile, and brushed past me with a murmured apology.

That brief touch and brief glance took my breath away. I stood trembling, wondering why I was feeling that way, and all I could see was her eyes, those beautiful, terrible eyes. Eyes that seemed to look into my soul in a single glance. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit there, but she did have quite a presence. I gradually composed myself, looking at my feet and hoping no one had noticed my reaction. A covert glance around reassured me that no one seemed to have noticed much of anything, and indeed their initial reaction to the girl seemed to be entirely forgotten.

It wasn’t that I liked other girls, at least not in that way; it was something else entirely. It was something even more basic. Much later, I figured it out; it was the response of a gazelle to the lion. But back then, all I knew was that I would have to find out more about the mystery girl.

Looking around, I could see that no one was paying any more attention to the girl, as though she had vanished entirely from their minds. I frowned, as it seemed a bit strange that the girl who moments before had commanded the undivided attention of everyone should suddenly be forgotten.

Alex, I asked tentatively, Who is that girl?

Girl? he responded, confused. What girl?

That one, I replied, pointing to her as she vanished into the office. The supermodel.

He had a faraway look on his face as he thought. Then he simply shrugged. No idea, some new kid I suppose. Then he looked confused. Supermodel?

I ignored him. Anyone? I asked my friends.

They shook their heads, similarly stumped.

Anyone notice anything...odd about her?

Odd? Lisa repeated, puzzled. Not really.

She’s just a girl, said Bryan, a boy of medium height and build with rather undistinguished looks. Just like the rest of us; another one for the Harpies and the Cheerleaders to step on.

Better than the Jocks, said Louis, who was a slightly shorter and rather fatter boy. At least the Harpies and the Cheerleaders don’t beat the girls up all the time. The black eye Billy the Running Back had given him a week ago had almost faded. Louis had told his parents and Principal Williams that he had ‘fallen’.

The other boys nodded knowingly, while the girls objected, citing times they’d been physically attacked.

I lost interest in hearing our same old woes rehashed, and wandered over to the office, peering into the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl who at the very least offered a possible respite from the tedium and degradation of school. I didn’t see her at first through the shades, which were partly closed, as if the staff wanted some privacy, but were afraid to completely close themselves off from the rest of the school.

As I looked, I pondered the curious fact that the unbelievably beautiful and mesmerizing girl who had so captivated my friends and everyone else present just moments before had somehow morphed in their minds into just another girl set up to be unpopular by an accident of birth. It was a puzzle I couldn’t solve.

Then I caught another glimpse of her, as she passed over some papers to Mrs. McGuire, Principal Williams' secretary. She turned around slowly, and winked at me, causing me to jump back into a solid body. I squeaked and jumped back. It was Principal Williams.

Is there a problem, Miss Christakis? he asked in his deep voice. I suppose that at this point, I should describe him, for he was certainly well worth the effort. He was a tall man, of not quite middle years, with short blond hair and glasses. And he certainly was solid, as though he spent all his spare time exercising. I had heard from another student that he was a judo expert, and still another that he was an ex-Marine. Yet another claimed in a hushed voice that he was in fact a C.I.A agent, while another swore up and down that he had killed a man in Mexico.

Whatever the case, no one messed with Principal Williams, and everyone respected him. Or rather the staff did, and those of the students inclined to respect authority, (like my friends and I). The rest simply ignored him, or paid him lip service. I sometimes wondered if he minded, or if he had bigger plans in life than had somehow gotten derailed by the harsh light of reality. Later, I realized that just like most of us, he was simply getting along in life. Still later, I realized just how wrong I had been, about him; and most other things.

But for then, I simply stammered out a non-committal denial that there was in fact anything wrong, and got sent on to class with a stern admonition not to be late. It was an order I took to heart, as I did essentially every order given me, regardless of who gave them or why. So it was that I found myself in homeroom, along with Lisa from my clique, and several Cheerleaders I despised, as well as George and Billy.

I sighed lightly as I settled down at my desk. Another day, another rotten day. Lisa smiled slightly, feeling just what I felt. The teacher, Miss Hobbs, a young and still idealistic Latin teacher, (as a school in one of the tonier areas, we were one of the few to offer that subject in the city), cleared her throat slightly, and turned to her clipboard, preparing to take role.

Miss Hobbs was in her twenties, young and pretty, and the object of not a few crushes among the boys. I happened to know that Alex was deeply in what he thought was love with her, though he was far too tongue-tied and awkward around girls, (well, except for those of us in his clique), to say anything. And for her part, Miss Hobbs wasn’t a perv or pedo fortunately, (and there had been several of those at schools in our district), so there was never even the remotest thought of impropriety about her. Though she was the subject of some crude talk from the Jocks.

Lisa and I had discussed Miss Hobbs before. I was impressed with her dedication and skill as a teacher. Lisa however, was of the opinion that she would soon wise up and learn the futility of trying to teach anything to the majority of her students, most of whom simply refused to learn, especially a subject as esoteric and by all accounts useless as Latin, (I would later learn yet again just how wrong that impression was). She had already had a blow-up in the hallway with Coach Manning, who wanted her to cut some slack on her grading for some of his ‘boys’.

Miss Hobbs however had stood her ground, on the theory that no student should get special favors on their grades, no matter what sport they played, or how well they played it. Much to the sheer amazement of everyone, (at least the students), she prevailed, with Principal Williams backing her. And equally astonishing was the fact that after a short period of grumbling, Coach Manning backed down and agreed to make sure the ‘boys’ in question attended extra tutoring sessions with Miss Hobbs after school until their grades picked up. I guess even the Coach didn’t want to piss off Mr. Williams.

Which they did, at first with excitement, imagining some sort of sexual adventure of the kind they had heard about in other schools, then with bitter resignation when it became clear that Miss Hobbs had no interest in them whatsoever except as failing students who represented a challenge to her skills and authority. That settled, they realized that their tenure on their respective teams was in fact in jeopardy, and with Miss Hobbs' help, they buckled down to the hard task of actually learning something in class. Why they had even taken the class was a subject of some speculation among my clique, but the prevailing theory was that they had heard about the last Latin teacher, Mr. Morden, who had retired late last year, and his very Jock friendly grading policy. We had some good times imagining their reaction to Miss Hobbs.

By that fateful day, however, the Jocks in our class were in the process of climbing out of the hole they had dug themselves academically, and Miss Hobbs had won the respect of those of us who had always taken our studies seriously.

As she ticked off the names on her board, noting the absences, my mystery girl entered our room. Silence filled the room immediately, and my heart skipped another beat. Again, no one but me seemed to see the girl as stunningly beautiful, or indeed out of the ordinary in any way. She handed her papers to the Miss Hobbs, who took them, and gestured that she should take a seat. The girl looked around, at faces ranging from bored and disinterested; to actively hostile and gleaming with malice. She walked slowly in George’s direction, then as she seemed likely to take the seat just behind him, veered suddenly off to the side and walked down the few rows to where Lisa and I sat.

Would you mind? she asked in an accent I could not place, an accent full of promise and mystery.

Suddenly unable to speak, I nodded mutely.

She smiled and took her seat next to me.

Miss Hobbs looked up and cleared her throat slightly. The mystery girl smiled at her. Vara Strøm? she inquired. Am I saying it correctly?

That’s pretty good, agreed the girl in her exotic accent. Most people don’t get it right the first time.

There was a small snicker from Billy the Bully, quickly quieted by a pointed glance from Miss Hobbs.

Very good, Miss Hobbs said. I see here that you’ve had some Latin before, Miss Strøm?

Some, Vara agreed.

Miss Hobbs frowned. You’ve missed about a month of the second semester, she said uncertainly. If you have problems, I could assign you a tutor. She looked around, her gaze settling on me. Perhaps Penelope would be so kind? she suggested. She’s my best student.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat, aware that being labeled her ‘best’ student was going to cost me at the very least some cruel words from the others, especially the Cheerleaders and the Harpies, who were at that very moment staring at me with ill-disguised hostility. I none-the-less nodded affirmation, unwilling to actually speak.

Miss Hobbs smiled. Excellent, then it’s settled! Miss Christakis can get you up to speed, Miss Strøm.

Vara smiled in response, with a smile that seemed to light up the room. That will be fine, she said softly, looking at me with a curious expression on her face.

Fine, then let’s get started, Miss Hobbs said, ending the matter. Class, please turn to page 55, and translate the first paragraph. You have five minutes.

With that, Latin class got underway, with its usual mixture of satisfaction, when I could translate passages my enemies couldn’t, followed by terror when I came across a passage that even I had trouble with. I was called on only once to go to the board with my translation, and to my relief, I was entirely correct. Vara was not called on at all, and in fact, seemed to be as ignored as I usually am.

As class let out, Vara touched my shoulder while we walked through the door. I felt an almost electric shock. I’m pleased to meet you, Penelope. It’s always nice to meet someone from the old country.

I drew back a bit from her touch. How did you know?

She smiled. I know a Greek accent when I hear one.

She turned then to walk away, then paused and turned back. My next class is economics, but after that I have biology with Mr. Reynolds. I believe you have that class as well, don’t you?

I nodded mutely, wondering how she knew my schedule.

Excellent, then I’ll see you there, and perhaps we can discuss meeting after school so you can get me up to speed with the month of Latin that I missed.

With that, she turned away again and disappeared into the crowd of students trying not to get to their next class.

What was that all about? Lisa asked, staring after her.

I’m not sure, I responded uncertainly. She wants to talk about meeting me after school for that tutoring.

I got that, Lisa said. I just wondered if she’s going to be one of us? She looked at me thoughtfully. She seems nice enough, none of that stuck-up attitude the Harpies have. And she’s plain enough to be one of us.

I stared at her in confusion. You think she’s plain looking?

Well, yeah, sure. Her face isn’t going to win any beauty contests, that’s for sure, and if she were any flatter, she’d be me. That last she said looking down at her chest ruefully. It had long been a source of some pain for her, and many cruel comments from the popular girls that her chest had utterly failed to develop.

Which again was a source of puzzlement, since Vara was very far from being flat-chested. I surreptitiously checked down the front of my blouse. Fine, I was still north of Lisa in the rack war.

Leaving that aside, I simply shrugged my shoulders. Gotta get to Mr. Tanner’s class, Lise, I said, and started toward my next destination.

See you later, Lisa called, setting off to her next torture station.

I sat through the hour of Mr. Tanner’s US history class with some anticipation, getting less enjoyment out of his class than I normally did. The class was an oasis free from torment, for none of my enemies, none of the popular kids were there. The class was a mix of nerds, foreign exchange students, and a few Mexican kids who were all fairly quiet, and all had their own cliques. Mr. Tanner himself was a fairly boring teacher, but I had always enjoyed his subject, and found it easy enough. But today, I found myself barely paying attention as Mr. Tanner droned on about Sherman’s March to the Sea, as I sat thinking about Vara.

In truth, I welcomed any distraction from the woes of my daily routine. But Vara was special for some reason beyond providing entertainment; some reason I couldn’t put my finger on. Feeling somewhat confused by my own reaction to her, I sat through the lecture in turmoil, waiting to get out. Fortunately, Mr. Tanner’s class was one of those classes you could skate through with very little involvement other than simply showing up for tests. He didn’t even particularly seem to care very much if you showed up for his lectures, much less if you actually listened. In his fifties, and near the end of his teaching career, (or so we all supposed, being quite unaware of retirement age), he was the antithesis of Miss Hobbs; something Lisa and Alex had remarked on before.

But today at least, his style served me well, and soon enough the hour was over, and I found my feet hurrying me over to biology class faster than normal. Along the way, I bumped into Sandra, the Cheerleader, and a bunch of her friends. She stood in front of me, barring my way with a nasty smile on her face, one that was in fact quite similar to the fake smile she wore when she was performing at a football game. Her friends closed in around me, all looming taller than me.

Excuse me, I mumbled, trying to push past Sandra.

What’s the matter, Greek girl, she asked sarcastically. Or is it ‘Geek girl’?

That’s so original, called out Alex, who stood just past the knot of Cheerleaders, with an angry look on his face. You think she hasn’t heard that a thousand times before?

The smile vanished from Sandra’s face. Shut up, creep, she said flatly. This isn’t about you.

Alex looked about to protest when he noticed George and Billy standing nearby. Billy smiled at him nastily and mimed a fist hitting him in the eye. Alex gulped and shut up.

I hear Miss Hobbs thinks you’re something special, Sandra said sweetly, as the other girls laughed at Alex. Her friends nodded. Set you to tutor some new girl because you’re the ‘best’.

That’s what she said, George confirmed.

Her smile got broader. You must think you’re something special, she said in a menacing voice, moving closer and grabbing my arm.

She is, came Vara’s exotic voice from just behind Sandra. A great deal more special than you.

Sandra let my arm go and turned in fury to face Vara. Sandra drew back her hand as if to hit her, and Vara said quietly I wouldn’t.

Sandra stopped still as a statue at that, looking somewhat puzzled. She looked deeply into Vara’s face, and took a step back. Vara was not smiling, and for a second, Sandra looked as if she had seen a ghost, and a terrified expression passed over her face. Then, just as quickly as it came, the expression of terror passed, and was replaced by a look of uncertainty.

George, Billy, and Sandra’s cheerleader friends watched the byplay with puzzlement, as if they couldn’t see what Sandra had seen for a brief instant, while I stood transfixed; hopeful and worried at the same time.

Sandra took another step back, and lowered her hand, looking at it as if she’d quite forgotten what she was doing. I... she said, trailing off and looking around her in a confused manner. I have to get to class, she managed finally, walking off in what I knew to be the wrong direction. Her friends gathered her up and gave her a gentle shove in the right direction, giving Vara a wide berth as they passed, while I was entirely forgotten.

George and Billy also hurried on to their classes, with George giving Vara a curious glance as he passed.

That was something! Alex said, finally letting out the breath he had been holding as Vara confronted Sandra. He looked at her with respect, and more than a little curiosity. Mind teaching me to do that?

Vara smiled slightly and shook her head. I’m afraid it won’t work for you, she said. Then she opened the door to our classroom. Stopping in the doorway, she glanced at me. Coming?

Alex and I looked at each other, and I simply shrugged and followed her into the classroom, with a bemused Alex in tow.

Biology was a class many dreaded, mostly for the dissections we all knew were coming later in the semester. We had spent the past few weeks learning about the various bodily systems of a frog, and had another few weeks to go before the big event, the class dissections. Lisa was of the opinion that it was both ‘gross’ and cruel. She felt sorry for the frogs in her class, one period later than mine, and was angling to get her mother to get her out of participating.

Alex on the other hand, was looking forward to it, as were most of the boys, and had studied quite hard so that he would make a good job of it when the time came. I neither looked forward to it, nor dreaded it. It simply was another day I wished wouldn’t happen.

Upon entering the class ahead of us, Vara had apparently gone straight to Mr. Reynolds’ desk and presented him with her papers. They were huddled together at his desk, conferring over her status in the class. The conference evidently over, Vara turned and walked toward Alex and me. She looked questioningly at the empty seat beside mine, and I nodded. We all sat at the same lab table, one of several long tables with sinks and Bunsen burners, all relatively new, courtesy of state money to upgrade our science classrooms while they built the new, much larger dedicated science building.

She took the seat, with Alex on her left, and me on her right. Evidently, I’m quite far enough along in this subject to suit Mr. Reynolds, she said with an amused expression on her face.

Miss Strøm, Mr. Reynolds called, waving a sheet of paper. You need to have one of your parents sign this permission slip if you want to participate in the dissection.

He passed it to the student at the front, who passed it back, and on down the table until it got to Vara, who accepted it gingerly. One of my parents? she said unenthusiastically.

Mr. Reynolds nodded. Yes, he said, frowning. Is that a problem?

Vara hesitated for a long moment, then replied reluctantly, No.

Excellent, he beamed, Then let’s get started.

The hour passed without much talking between us, as Mr. Reynolds lectured about the reproductive system of frogs, a subject of profound disinterest to me. Biology was in truth one of the few subjects aside from P.E. that I struggled in, mostly because I simply wasn’t interested. Like more than a few of the girls in my clique, I related more to words than to the biological sciences, though I did well enough in math and the other sciences. If I had to get analytical about it, I suppose it was because I empathized with our subjects on some level too much to enjoy the idea of taking them apart. Not perhaps like Lisa, who had deeply held philosophical objections to the idea of dissection, but on a more personal level. In short, I could see myself in some strange way in the place of the frog I was destined to dissect. Alex claimed it was an issue of low self-esteem, and I was hard-pressed to argue.

I confided this to Vara in a low tone when Mr. Reynolds had gotten well and truly into his lecture, knowing that as long as we were quiet, he wouldn’t notice us talking.

Vara smiled and whispered back. Why would you have low self-esteem? she asked.

I thought for a few seconds. I’m short, fat, and plain. All the popular kids hate me, and I get bullied every day, I said bitterly. What is there exactly that would make me think better of myself.

Vara lost her smile, and took a serious and slightly angry look on her face. You have it all wrong. They teach you all these days, she threw her arms out to indicate a vague ‘they’, that self-esteem is something you can be given, or something you should be born with.

But, she leaned in close to me as her voice dropped to an even softer whisper, Self-esteem is something you earn. Those kids out there, that cheerleader girl who was harassing you, and those football players behind them; they have plenty of self-esteem. In part because they’ve earned it in different ways.

She peered at me carefully down her nose. And you're not so short, or quite as plain or flat as you seem to think.

Earned it! I exclaimed, causing Mr. Reynolds to pause in his lecture, but not turn around from the chalkboard on which he was diagramming the frog’s reproductive system, and causing Alex, who had been listening intently, to frantically shush me. How have they earned it? I said, chastened, in a considerably weaker voice, wondering furiously the whole while just how she knew how I agonized over my cleavage, or relative lack thereof.

They’re good at something, and they know it, she said simply, not deigning to answer my secret question. "I’m not saying they’re good at something significant, or something especially worthwhile, but they are good at something. The question you should ask is are you good at something? Have you worked as long and hard as they have to get become that accomplished