Inside the Rainclouds, a published story by Arianna (added chapter 5 and 6!)

This is a story that I wrote in June, in 16 days. It's 51,000 words long (novel ) and I self-published it on createspace. Which leaves the copyright to me, so I may post it here. Unless you've found some legal loophole which gives them my work. In that case, please tell me
It's not that good - and this is mainly so you can read it and so I can have a motivation to edit it. If you really like it, however, just search Inside the Rainclouds on Amazon.com, and buy it But honestly, you don't have to

Maturity: Fighting, people being proclaimed dead.
Fantasy: People who can change the weather, read minds, influence minds, have super-good-luck, be quick at everything, etc.

1 – Me
I consider myself normal. Actually, I only consider myself normal most of the time. My wavy, brunette hair reaches the middle of my back. My green eyes are just the average green. I am not tall, but not short, either. Though I am thin, I’m not really super-model thin, but then again, I don’t want to be. I don’t wear designer labels, but I obviously don’t shop at thrift stores. I have a B+ average in school. I eat healthily, but not extremely healthily. I do sports, but I could do sports more often. I have friends, but I certainly am not in the popular group. I have a brother, Zach, and a sister Cathleen, who goes by Cathy, and my parents, as you would assume, are also somewhat “average”, but just on the outside. Mom is a stay at home mom, and takes care of Zach, who is two years old. Cathleen goes to high school, and she’s in 10th grade. She is popular and has near perfect grades, and I am very envious of this. I go to middle school, in 8th grade. Dad works his 9-5 job; he works in the finances department in the small company in our hometown. However, I’m not as “average” as people think. I can change the weather as simply as I can get dressed, or eat breakfast, or have a conversation with someone.
I may seem like a boring person, someone who you could see anywhere you go, but that’s just what I have to pretend to be, for our family’s safety. I have a gift. And not just some silly kind of ‘skill’ which allows me to see which card you’re holding, or ‘tell the future’. I’m lucky enough to be able to change the weather; any weather, any time. I could start a thunderstorm, or make it a sunny day. I could cause a tornado in place A, while in place B, there could be a draught. I just can do these things. How, you ask? I didn’t really know “how” I got the gift, but I do know that it had been passed down in our family for generations and generations.


One summer, when I was eleven, I went to my grandma, Bianka May’s house. We had a fun time, sitting outside, talking, and mostly just relaxing. During this vacation, my grandmother told us of the story of our family’s history.
We were sitting outside on the porch, which was a lovely place. It was surrounded by trees, dark firs. They were wonderful, and they smelt so much like nature. I loved being at my grandma’s house. It was surrounded by birds tweeting and just had this air of peacefulness. I loved it.
My grandma was to start telling us about the gift just that very day. Cathleen and I were outside, sitting on the porch. I was reading a book, but that wasn’t important. Our grandma came out, and started telling us the story.
“My mother, Amelie Rance Coal, had a very special gift, probably the best that anyone in our family had ever had. You see, she could also control something. She had an amazing gift, and I will never forget the good – and horrible – ways that it influenced me. She could control people’s minds. This was both a good and a bad thing. Mom, Amelie, who went by Amie, was a strong young girl. She worked hard, and until she was 13, had no gift, just like the rest of us. She went to school until she was 12, until at the end of 6th grade, when her mother and her stepfather decided that she needed to help at home. This was so she could take care of her 7 siblings, all of which were younger than her. Mom was horribly shocked about this, as she loved to learn. She was devastated that she had to stop learning at such a young age. She tried everything, but her parents, or my grandparents, wouldn’t budge. Disappointedly, she came to face the fate that she would never be what she had dreamed of being, a school teacher. This is why, when she turned 13 and received her gift; she began using it for purposes which weren’t ideal. She used it to get anything, whether it meant not needing to take care of her brothers and sisters, or if it meant that someone did an errand or a job for her.
Just when things seemed to be getting better for Amelie and the family, which now was Amelie, her husband Richard, and her two young girls, which were Tasha, my older sister, and me, Bianka May, Amelie became very, very sick with an unknown illness. At just 29 years old, she died of an unknown cause, leaving our budding family to dissolve without her gift.”
I paused for a second, feeling sorry for my grandmother. That was horrible! I couldn’t imagine what would have happened to me if I were in her case. I knew she was very brave, and I appreciated it. I looked up at her old and wrinkled face as she continued to tell the story.
“Both Tasha and I received our gifts on our 13th birthdays. Tasha, who was just a bit older than me, had a gift which these days would mean nothing, but back then meant very much to all of us. You see, my sister was very smart, which allowed her to get a scholarship at a local school. She was over the moon about it, though she didn’t want to use her gift for something good and pure; she wanted to use it to get revenge. I didn’t agree with it, of course, but Tasha believed that a close friend of the family for many years, Julie Martin, was the one that had killed her mother. She believed that while in the house, Julie had poisoned her mother’s tea. Tasha respected our mother greatly ever since she had been told about her gift when she was 5 and I was 3, and she wanted to follow in her footsteps. She believed that Julie killed our mother out of jealousy for the gift that she possessed. Tasha, who when our young mother died was only 10, vowed to kill Julie herself, whatever it took. Though I was disgusted, I thought she wouldn’t follow though, and put the thought aside. Tasha, who had been given the lovely gift of intelligence, began to plot and scheme with her remarkable skills, unknown to me, and came up with a murderous plan to kill her.”
I winced. I thought our family was only made out of good, but I guessed that I was wrong. I could see tears in my grandma’s eyes as she continued.
“In the meantime, I had just turned 13. I purely believed that her mother died for an unknown, yet also natural, reason. Though I was completely devastated and wrecked by my mother’s death, I tried to go on with my life, of course. The day that I turned 13, I gained the gift of immortality, though not completely. I think that the only way to have me die would be to die of the poison that my mother died of.”
I hoped that my grandma would never die. She was so nice, so perfect. Someone as compassionate as her never deserved to die, did they?
“One day in June, Tasha had completed her final plan to kill Julie. She would sneak into her house, and, using the same poison that she suspected had killed her mother, murder Julie by tipping it into her tea. Of course I found out too late, just as I was coming home from school, and an anxious group of people had gathered around Julie’s house, peering in the windows and whispering funny things. I was curious, though nervous, and I inquired about the commotion. News was that Julie had been found dead in her house just half an hour ago, and that she had been killed by poison. Suddenly, I knew that my sister had done it. Scared, I plotted out my options. I could revolt against her sister, or I could pretend to go along with her. I could run away from home, or maybe try to marry off early. Confused by the sudden turn of events, all that I thought that I could really do to spare my life would be to run away from home. I packed my bags, only keeping a few pairs of clothes and all the savings I had, though my savings weren’t very much. I left two notes, one for my father, who I genuinely loved, and one for my sister, who I had grown to purely revolt in the last hours. My note to her father was soft, telling him he had nothing to worry about, though I knew that I, myself, would have lots to worry about. My note to Tasha, however, was angry, confused, and sad. It showed my feelings of being betrayed, and how horrible I thought it was for Tasha to do something as mean as this. Late at night, I escaped quietly from the house, leaving the notes for each family member outside their doors.”
I looked at my grandma, and so did Cathleen. I could see that she was crying, and the tears were rolling down her face. I felt so sorry for her, but I said nothing, wanting the story to continue.
“At this point, I possessed no places to go to, no second plans at this point. However, my gift was what let me survive. I didn’t need to eat nor sleep, and so I could easily go around the land, asking for small amounts of money as a beggar. Girls, remember being a beggar is certainly something which isn’t nice at all. It was horrible and I started to have other ideas. This was how I came upon the feeling that I felt it was my duty to continue on the family line, so I set out to find a husband.
I was only 15 at the time I escaped. I was still a young girl, but being a beggar matured me, and with my kind of gift, at this stage of my life I guess that I looked like a young woman of around 16 or 17. I was self confident, and happy, well, pretty happy for a beggar. I had blond curls and a sparkling smile. 2 months into my escape, I was lucky enough to meet a young man, Brandon Carter Strong. We fell in love, and we got married a few months later. Those were the happiest days of my life.”
She was smiling, probably at a memory. I smiled to, and I could see Cathleen sitting next to me, ready for the next part of the story. I was too, and my eyes urged her to continue speaking.
“I couldn’t lie, so I told Brandon about the history of the family, and he seemed impressed. He was a loving person, and, though he had never met anyone in my family, he deeply hated my sister, because of her horrible deeds. I tried to tell him not to hate her because she was my sister, but eventually I ended up feeling like him on the matter. We had three kids late on in life, when my scars of a sad childhood had almost healed. Our first born, Aunt Patricia Ann, is your aunt, as you know. She gained an unusual gift. This gift was good fortune. It allowed her to win many games she played, and earned us a lot of money. This was great because our finances kept going up and down as neither of us really had a proper education. However, she was accused to cheating a lot because of her gift, and eventually she had to rely on any activity which involved luck. Her gift, she felt, was useless, though she came to support her younger sister – or your mother – a lot through the years.”
Grandma Bianka May was starting to move into the territory that I knew, of the more recent past, but I still listened, wanting to know how everything seemed to be from her point of view.
“Her younger sister, Alexandra, is your mother. She is 2 years younger than Aunt Patricia Ann, so they are very close, as you can see. She was very lucky, and therefore she has the gift of being able to do anything quickly, let it be a math problem or the chores around the house. She gained a lot of free time because of her amazing gift, which she used to contribute a lot of work towards gaining a college degree. We were, of course, very proud of her when she earned it, because neither of us had one. Over time, she learned about our history, just like you two are doing. She cared a lot for the family’s history, and she planned to find her aunt, Tasha, who is my sister, and once and for all, put her in prison or managed to get all evil out of her. However, her plan – which had seemed to be going brilliantly, despite the lack of encouragements from us, as we didn’t want her to get hurt – stopped short when she ran out of options. She, herself, did not want to be responsible for anyone’s death, may they be from the evil or the good side. She considered being able to get Tasha into jail, but how would that help? Tasha was a mastermind, an evil genius. She’d spend 3 days, 4 at the most, in jail, before she would somehow trick a jail warden and escape. Alexandra decided to forget about the issue, and hoped that Tasha had realized her mistakes by then.”
I looked through the window and saw my mother shuffling around, tidying things up. I smiled at her gift, and, as I had not received mine yet, wondered what it could be.
“Last but not least, we had a young boy, Caleb. Though he was a boy, and therefore he couldn’t receive a gift, he also despised Tasha, just like his wonderful older sisters. He looked like a very “regular” person throughout his childhood and he still is, and he has always managed to blend in perfectly, wherever he may be. When he was young, he always wished to be someone with power, like a CEO or an inventor. However, when Caleb noticed his unusual skill of blending in wherever he was, he decided to work as an agent, to solve mysteries. He seemed to be… inspired… because of Amelie’s death, and he wanted to find out what caused things like that. I didn’t tell him anything, even though I was absolutely sure that it was the poison.”
I remembered my Uncle Caleb. Though I hadn’t seen him for a few years, I remembered all of the fun that we always seemed to have with him, and wished that he was here, also listening to the amazing story that my grandmother was telling me.
“In the time where I was having kids and supporting my family, Tasha was too, though I didn’t know it at the time. She hadn’t grown frail or weak due to all that she could craft to make her strong and young, I guess. Tasha had continued her family prosperously, marrying a wealthy business man. She had 4 daughters and 2 sons with him. She planned for them to take after her, and to inherit the gift, your Aunt Miriam has told me. However, she didn’t really care about her husband, or her two sons. All she cared about was continuing on the line of gifts, for which, she believed, she only needed daughters. She abandoned both of her sons when they were two, leaving them at a local children's home, and, secretly, after she had all of her children, killed her husband in the same way that she killed Julie Martin, I presume, which is all I can say. Either that, or he died of a ‘mysterious cause’, but that isn’t that likely, is it?”
I took this in, again. I wondered how one sister could be so pure and sincere while the other could be so evil and mean. I guessed that that was just life, and continued listening intently to the story.
“Her daughters were devastated, but of course they had no reason to suspect their mother in the killing of their father. Still mourning, one by one, the girls turned 13 and received their gifts.”
I wondered about this. How come I had never heard about this scary part of the family before?
“Mollie, Stephanie, Crystal, and Miriam, for those were their names, received “diluted” gifts. Mollie had the gift of invisibility; however it only worked when she was near Crystal, who shared the same gift. Stephanie had the gift of illusion, with which she could make things appear, and disappear, at her wish. Again, she and Miriam could only use their gift when within a close proximity of each other. One evening, when all of the girls had already received their gifts, Tasha sat down with all of them in their dining room in their luxurious house. She told them all about the plan to wipe out the other part of the family, those with the name which ended with “Strong”. Three of the daughters agreed, vowing to do anything for their mother. Miriam, the youngest, didn’t want to take part in this. As I had done many years ago, she packed up her items of value and left home.”
I wondered if Miriam had really done this, and I applauded her braveness. Even though I knew what would happen next as of here, I thought about the fact that she would now also become a beggar in the story, just like my Grandmother had.
“Miriam was younger than I when she left home, as she had just turned 13. She didn’t have the gift of immortality either, so she was out of luck. Using phonebooks and inquiring at every person she saw, she searched for the other half of the family, and for me and my family, though she just knew about us from snippets of conversation that she had picked up. After living the life of a beggar for a year, Miriam found me, my husband, and your mom, aunt, and uncle one day at a market place. Inquiring again, Miriam knew that we were her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She asked to stay with them, for she had run away from home.”
I stared inside, wide-eyed. I wondered how hard it must have been for Aunt Miriam, and I thought about everything that must have hindered her along the way.
“Knowing how horrible Tasha was, I decided to allow Miriam to stay with us. Though she was the children’s cousin, they treated her like a sister. A sister without gifts, that was, sadly. When Alexandra received her gift, Miriam often seemed to feel jealous of her, which was probably because she was the person who had a really wonderful gift. As envious as she was, she always seemed to find sympathy with Aunt Patricia Ann, who also couldn’t use her gift, and who was around the same age as her. They became best friends, though they never meant to hurt your mom, who, because of this, would often feel left out. Alexandra spent a lot of time with Caleb, and they were also good friends. However, as your uncle got older, and he spent more time with the guys, he just didn’t seem to get along with your mother as well as he did before.”
I sighed. That was sad. I hoped that mom wasn’t too lonely in her childhood, which would have been really sad for her.
“As they grew up, the four siblings, siblings because Miriam had needed to be adopted, didn’t grow apart. They stayed together, talking about gifts and how they could have came to be. A subject that always came up, however, was Tasha. Tasha, Miriam had said, was planning to kill the family, Miriam included. Everyone was very scared as they anxiously hoped against the day in which Tasha would come to defeat them. Now I, of course, didn’t agree with them, but I didn’t fight, for I knew it was useless.”
I agreed with my Grandma. I knew how hard it was to fight with mom, and I would assume that with three added people, it would have been even harder.
“Apparently, from the random facts which my siblings and I had picked up, at this time, Tasha’s family was beginning to fall apart. Mollie and Crystal’s gifts were working well, however Stephanie felt useless. Though they had all began to hate each other and their mother, they worked together, crafting plans. When Tasha suddenly died, just like her mother had, they all began to suspect that the others had killed her. Torn with internal conflict, all of them left their home, and set out into the world.”
I wondered how my grandmother knew this, but I wouldn’t question it, she was very smart and wouldn’t tell a lie.
“Shortly after one side of the family started falling apart, the other side started becoming better and better. This time, your mom, Alexandra, met your dad, Todd. They were married a few years later, and Cathleen was born after that, followed by you, Kailee. Aunt Patricia Ann met a man called Hector right after that. Sadly, he had cancer, and he died two weeks before they were destined to be married. Whenever she’d fall in love with someone, they’d either be engaged, a criminal, or have a terminal disease. Caleb was still younger at this time and was very focused in his career, being a secret agent, traveling all over the world. “
I took in the story that I had just been told. I sat there on the porch, listening to the sound of nature and my Grandma sitting in the wooden rocking chair, and sensing the planks of the porch slightly creak as my sister got up to go inside.
I silently wondered about what she had told us. Was this history so important that it would continue on to me and Cathleen? 

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapters 5 and 6

That's awesome!

Thanks I thought that more people would see it, but I guess it's too boring. xP Oh well

There didn't seem to be many people on today. Maybe they'll see it another day.

My mom actually just ordered it for me yesterday . . . er, I'll explain it in my blog. xD But yeah, so I'm not gonna read it here, so nothing's spoiled for me.

I love it!! Awesome job!

That's fine, Shad. No need to read here, even though it's the edited version.. xP

Hmm . . . I'll have to read it afterwards, then, at the least. x3

Okay, that's cool

One word. Amazing.

Thanks I'll put the next chapter up tomorrow

Wow. My mom didn't want to order ItR for me, but I might make her. This is...amazing.

Oh...WOW.

Thanks, you two. When I get on the other computer, I'll put another chapter up

*spazzes* This is like, up next to Diary of a Middle Sister!

The chapters 2-5 are pure boring. xP

2 – Life
Doesn’t everyone hate Monday mornings? You’re having a nice weekend and then “Bam!” Monday decides to jump out on you. I woke up at 6:30; ten minutes before I was really supposed to wake up. I looked out of the big window on my wall, and I saw the rain pouring down steadily and the gutters overflowing. Hearing the loud pitter-patter of the rain made me sleepy, and I wished I could go to sleep for just a few more minutes.
However I dragged myself out of bed, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked – and was – sleepy, yet I gathered my clothes for the day; a red tank top, blue jeans, white socks, and underwear, and walked out into the hallway and into the bathroom which Cathleen and I shared. I could see that Cathleen had already been in there, because the mirror was steamy and the shower was wet. I took a shower, as quickly as possible, and then I got dressed. I washed my face, and dried it with a rough, white, towel. I brushed my hair, and let it fall down my back like it usually did. I then went to my room again and checked if I’d done all of my homework. Thankfully, yes. I gave Cara, my cat, a stroke on her back before I picked up my backpack and walked down the stairs, the rain splashing up against the windows like the beat of a continuous, slow, dance song.
I poured myself a bowl of cereal, and added milk. It sloshed out of the bowl, so I got a dish towel and wiped it up quickly. I sat down at the dining table, where Cathleen and dad were already sitting: Cathleen eating toast, dad eating scrambled eggs. It wasn’t a quiet meal, but it wasn’t exactly lively either. We were all hurrying off to school and work, and the last thing we needed was Zach waking up at seven in the morning on a week day, demanding pancakes in the shape of bulldozers and a place to sit to watch TV. I finished my breakfast, and dumped my bowl in the sink, and then I ran upstairs to brush my teeth. Three minutes later I came down, and said bye to dad and mom, mom who seemed to have just woken up. Cathleen, who I refused to call Cathy, got up too, and we left the house together as the middle school and high school shared a building.
On the way to school I met Vanessa and Karen, my best friends. They were the only ones in school who knew about my gift, and probably would also be the only ones who would believe it if I told people. There was no reason to, though, because all people would want to do would be to hurt me, or make use of my gift in some bad way, which wouldn’t exactly be good.
“How are you?” Karen asked.
“I’m fine. Just, I sort of wish I’d thought to make it sunny today.” I said, gesturing to my raincoat and soaked backpack. April showers bring May flowers, but right now I wished that the flowers could wait a bit.
”Yep” said Vanessa, “Why didn’t you?” making a face as a giant raindrop fell on her nose.
“Well” I said, trying to formulate it in the best way possible “I personally don’t think that it’s right to use my powers just to my advantage. You know? Help everyone, not just yourself.”
Karen laughed sympathetically, “And getting us to school without being soaked is not helping others?”
I rolled my eyes and giggled “You know what I mean.” I said jokingly.
It was 8:20 when we got to school, so we were just on time. Not everyone was as soaked as us, though, especially not Caroline. Caroline was super rich, and so she got to be chauffeured around in her dad’s limo. Lucky her!
Caroline was nice enough, but she was what you would classify as popular. She had straight blonde hair, blue eyes, and the like. She was a good person, but a bit stuck up. Her dad worked in the oil industry and he sure got a lot of money from his job, which seemed to take him away to far and exotic places, which Caroline and her friends like to brag about. Completely decked out in designer clothes, handbags, and make-up, Caroline resembled a walking store mannequin. She got good grades, though, and she made an effort to talk to people outside of her group.
However, others in her group didn’t seem to make that effort. I felt really sorry for some of the unpopular people, or the outcasts. Some people, especially Cecilia and Charlene, could really get on everyone’s nerves. They were constantly teasing others, making people look silly or weird, or badmouthing them. Everyone, I think, except for maybe Caroline, hated them, even the other popular kids. They didn’t bother me, because, like I said earlier, I wasn’t on the popular side, but I wasn’t on the unpopular side either.
I walked over to my locker, number 192, and unlocked it. I took my books out for my first classes, World History and English, and stuck them into my backpack. I slammed my locker and walked over to Karen, who had World History with me. She was missing her book, and I helped her look through her locker for it.
It was too late! The bell rang. We ran to the classroom, which was on the second floor, and thankfully we arrived just in time. Our teacher, Mr. Banks, announced that we would be doing a project on food in different cultures during the same time period. Finally a fun project, we thought, because the final assessment included cooking two dishes, we got to work with a partner of our choice, and also because the write up only needed to be two pages long.
I planned to work with Karen, but she had already decided to work with her crush, Dylan. I then decided to work with Beatrice. She was a “nerd” as people in our school would call her, but she was actually a nice person. We decided to research food in the 1500s, and we started our research that lesson. The good thing: Beatrice was an awesome worker, and we had one page by the time the bell rang. The bad thing: Beatrice also cared about her grades. She thought that I should have one page of research done and edited by Wednesday, and should have decided on one recipe that we’d make. She’d do the other half, and then in the next lesson we’d do our first draft of the whole thing, she said. “I’ll do it” I said, but only because I knew that she honestly was really exited about this, and I couldn’t let her down.
I walked over to English, which was just one hallway down from the History hallway. English wasn’t exactly my favorite class, in fact, it was my least favorite. Mrs. Sears was the most annoying person on the planet, in my opinion. She was always assigning yet another project or test or homework assignment, so much I could hardly keep up! Karen wasn’t in my class, and neither was Vanessa, so I needed to suffer every lesson alone. Mrs. Sears had a new book for us, “Timon of Athens” by Shakespeare. We started reading it in class, and I found it incredibly boring. After answering a few questions in our binders, we were done. The bell rang and we got out of class, happily for me.
At break time, which was just about 20 minutes long, Karen, Vanessa, and I went to our lockers, took a breath of fresh air, and checked that all of our homework was up to date. I had decided that I wanted to get higher grades this semester, so I’d been spending more time on studying and homework than usual. It didn’t bother Karen and Vanessa though. They understood that I had a lot to live up to, mom being super quick and all. We had two more classes, then lunch, and then the last three classes. I had, as usual on a Monday, Spanish, my language elective, and then art after break. After lunch, I had math, computers, and lastly science. I liked math, because it was a subject which made a lot of sense to me. The day breezed by quickly, and I was eager to go home, because today both Karen and Vanessa were coming over.
When we got home, Zach was in the living room playing with his finger paints. It amazed me that the walls weren’t covered in splats of different colors by now, judging by the complete mess he was creating. I looked at the clock, and noticed that it was already 4 o’clock. Karen, Vanessa, and I went outside into our garden, and played on the trampoline for some time. Sadly, Vanessa fell off and hurt her ankle, so we had to go back inside, and she put an ice pack on it, wincing. “Oh well” she said, sounding disappointed. “What’s the problem?” inquired Karen. “I was going to try to do a back flip on the trampoline” she said.
“You know, that would have probably hurt you more than falling off it could ever hurt you!” I mentioned. She nodded in agreement, laughing “I guess you’re right.”
We decided to go to the dining room to do homework. Using my laptop, I found a recipe from the 1500s. I decided on a kind of English trifle, because it looked pretty good and because it looked extra easy to make. After typing one page about trifles, which was pretty hard, because there wasn’t much to say about them, and getting a recipe, all of us worked on our math homework together. Just as mom was calling us for dinner, Cathleen got home from cheerleader practice.
Both Vanessa and Karen stayed for dinner. Mom had, like always, prepared an elegant dinner for us. When you could work super quickly, I guess just heating some peas up and boiling pasta wasn’t enough. We had a kind of cheese casserole, which was actually really good, and butter sponge cake for dessert, which was delicious. Times like this made me forget that I could change the weather, and let me focus on the fact that I had a pretty good life, despite the fact that I had a gift which hardly anyone knew about.
When I went to bed, I wasn’t tired. I felt that I should have done more with my day, but I didn’t know what else there was to do. I forgot about that thought quickly though as I hurried through my bedtime routine, which was brushing my teeth, washing my face, and getting my pajamas on. I then walked into my bedroom, which was, at this time, completely dark because it was already 10:30. As I snuggled under my dark blue covers, I fell asleep quickly.

I wish I could write a story with this plot! Ari, would you get mad if I started a story about their descendants in Semi-Fanfics when you finish posting this?

No, I'd love it! I can PM you some more if you want to get started. (I'm just so baffled that someone would want to make a semi-fanfic based on it. x3)

Ok, 'cause it's your ideas. xD

I didn't know if would have been considered a fanfic because it's someone else's ideas but not a "big-time published" author, but it's not all out of my head, so it's a semi-fanfic. xD

Naw, I'll be good and wait like everyone else. *waits patiently*

*gets bored of waiting* xD

I'll do a chapter a day, then That should keep me motivated to edit, too

Sweetness! xD

How many chapters?

21 plus an epilogue

Sweet. I shall be occupied. xD

Yeppers

3 – Weather
How did I know I could change the weather? I’d changed it a few times, nothing significant, but I knew I could. Once, I’d changed it accidentally, on my 13th birthday. Though it almost started out as a rainy day, the weather flexed to become sunny and bright. When I didn’t receive what I wanted most, a camera, for my birthday, it suddenly started to rain again. I was really angry about this, especially because by then, I’d noticed that this was my gift, and that if I didn’t take care of what I was doing, I’d be my own mood indicator, just depending on what the weather was. Also, the effects of my gift could have hurt me and my family, if someone found out about the relation between my mood and the weather.
After that, I had to learn to control my gift. I had to take care that when I got angry, I didn’t do anything to change the weather, especially not suddenly and unexpectedly. However, times like this surfaced. Around one month after my birthday, I was having a bad day in school. Forgotten homework, fighting with Vanessa, and a horrible grade on my English quiz, not to mention the rude remarks that I’d gotten from Cecilia and Charlene, made my day horribly miserable. Saddened, I turned the perfectly sunny day into a thunderstorm. Noticing it, I tried to change it back to normal as quick as possible, concentrating on the weather.
During lunch, I went into one of the stalls in the bathroom and spent five minutes concentrating horribly hard on the weather which I wanted, the sunny day that I remembered from the morning. When I went out again, it was almost like it had been before the catastrophic events in my day, except for the fact that there were still puddles all over the ground, and gutters were dripping with dirty water from earlier. I was happy that I’d managed to change it intentionally for the first time, but I was exhausted, because, unknown to most people, changing the weather for a whole city isn’t exactly the easiest thing known to mankind to do.
After lunch, my day started getting better, but I had to watch out not to make it too obvious that I was happy, though I tried to make amends with Vanessa, and did. Later that day, I talked with mom and Cathleen, about the problem with my gift. Both of them were very sympathetic, telling me that it had happened to them too, but they also both reminded me that it was very, very, very important that this was kept a secret. I reminded them about the fact that weather sometimes goes though weird cycles, and told them I’d be more careful in the future. Thankfully they left it at that and decided to just leave me alone on it, just giving me the warning that we’d all be in danger if I accidentally used my gift like how I had again.
I worked very hard not to unintentionally use my gift, and it worked. When I was angry, I would remember the weather. If it was rainy, I would concentrate on the sound of the droplets hitting the glass of the old, grimy, school sky windows, and if it was sunny, I’d try to feel the heat which shone on me. It worked well, thankfully. I tried my best to not get so angry I couldn’t control myself, and it worked, as did trying to keep my mood with the weather, even if it wasn’t beneficial. Sometimes, if it was stormy, and I was with my family, I’d get angry, and then try to slowly become in a better mood, as to not influence the weather with my only slight mood changes.
The only other time where I actually used my gifts was in late March. It was Karen’s birthday, and based on the weather forecast, it was going to be horribly cloudy, with a very high chance of thunderstorms. Karen was going to have a birthday bash in her yard, even though it was cold, because she was such an outdoorsy person. That morning, when I woke up, I asked mom if she thought it was OK to use my gift for something like that. “Yes” she said, nodding slightly, “I think it’s just fine. You’re helping a friend and doing something good for the world. Weather patters can wait for a day; but I think you’ll need to study on what could happen if you change it like this, OK?”
I agreed, and she presented me with a fancy book on the weather, obviously an antique. It had a dusty red cover, and was written by a Native American. At first, it didn’t seem very accurate, but it was full of “What if’s” and “Why’s”, and I saw how helpful it was. I looked in the index, and saw that page 32 was “What will happen if I change this to that?” Turning to page 32, I saw an elaborate table with diagrams. It showed what would happen if rain was changed to sun, rain was changed to a storm, or even if sunny weather was changed to tornadoes. Every combination had a detailed description under it, telling the effects of changing this weather to that. Some of the most risky changes seemed to be ones where you changed good weather to bad weather, so I was safe.
The morning of Karen’s birthday, I woke up an hour early to change the weather. At 5:30 I rolled out of bed, and looked out of the window. Sure enough, it was a gloomy day, and the clouds were just beginning to turn into a dark and sinister grey. Hurrying up, I concentrated on what I wanted the day to be like. Sunny, I thought. It had to be sunny. That was the most important thing. I also thought about the fact that it should be warm for a day in May, and I made sure that a slight breeze was blowing. When I emerged from the kind of trance that I was in while “sculpting” the weather, I looked out of the window. Thankfully, my skills had worked. It was a sunny day now, and the grey clouds had completely disappeared, as if they had never even been there. That was perfect, I thought, and went to get dressed.
Things like these made me feel very happy about my gift, because I knew that I was helping other people. These things made me feel good, as I knew that somewhere someone was happy about it. However, I also thought about the consequences. Making it a sunny day might have been good for Karen, but maybe somewhere someone had planned to have a fun rainy day, only to be disappointed that it was sunny. But those were natural consequences, I thought. Give a little, get a little. Win a little, lose a little. Those things, like when I changed the weather for Karen, were just life, weren’t they? Yes, they were, I agreed with myself. Things like that were inevitable, whether they were natural or if I, or others, did them. I also thought that more people would be happy with sun than they would be with rain, right?


When I woke up the next morning, it was raining again. Tired, I got out of bad and, like usual, got ready for school. Today I decided to wear black jeans and a white shirt, but just for fun, I wore colorful striped socks with my black converse. I jumped down the stairs, two by two, and poured myself some cereal, Cheerios, like usual. I poured the milk in the bowl, and sat down at the table, earlier than the day before. I finished my breakfast quickly, and got up. I went up to my room, and packed up my backpack.
I looked around quickly for Cara, and found her behind my bed. Purring and stretching, it seemed that Cara had just woken up. I got her to follow me downstairs, and I poured her some water and got some cat food from the can. It sloshed out into her bowl, and she eagerly started eating the food in a very non-catlike way. I didn’t care, and I went upstairs to my room yet again to get ready for school. The pitter-patter of the rain continued, and I wondered if once, just for once, I should change the weather intentionally, but I decided against it. After all, it could change the natural weather cycle, which wouldn’t be that good. Who knows what would happen if I did something like that, just for my own selfish reason of being able to walk to school without getting sopping wet.
I brushed my teeth and my hair, and washed my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I felt tired. I was counting the days down in the week, before we would have our spring break. “Just 4 more days until spring break!” I thought happily. We were going to my Grandma Bianka May’s house, and we were meeting everyone for a big family get together, Caleb, Alexandra, and Miriam. I couldn’t wait!
I walked to school, this time only with Vanessa because Karen was sick with a cold. Happily, I talked about everything, from Karen’s crush on Dylan, to where Caroline was rumored to be heading for spring break; the Maldives. We talked about how lucky she was, and about how we were happy to be going on our own spring breaks, too. Vanessa was going to a log cabin in the woods for one of the two weeks, and camping in nature on the other week. Vanessa didn’t like nature as much as Karen did, and wasn’t so happy about it, but she was happy to be able to spend time with her usually busy parents, and get some time off from school. What were the negatives? Vanessa saw it like this; “Being stuck in a tent squished between my brother and dad for 5 nights in a row, is that so good?” You could imagine that that wouldn’t be so great for her, especially because her brother was a rambunctious five year old who played soccer and basketball and took karate lessons, which sometimes seemed to continue into his sleep.
That day in school, we had a peaceful day, just continuing on with our normal classes, basically, like always, a repeat of the same day. I got good grades back, an A in mathematics, a B+ in science, and a B in English, all which of were for homework assignments. Happy with my average result of an A- for that day, I treated Vanessa to an ice cream after school, and we brought it over to Karen’s house, where she was sick and in bed, coughing and sneezing. “I’m sorry about not coming to school today” she said, coughs interrupting her words. “I don’t feel that well.”
I wondered if she was very sick, but then I remembered that her allergies could make any sickness that she had seem more severe. “No kidding!” I said, and handed her the ice cream, which we had put in a bowl and topped with rainbow sprinkles.
Satisfied, she ate the ice cream, looking happy that her friends remembered her. However, there was also bad news.
“I’m so sorry about having to be the bearer of bad news.” I said, plopping three note books, two text books, and a scary, work filled folder, on her desk. I tried to talk every teacher possible out of giving you homework, but everyone insisted. I made a face. How could teachers be so unsympathetic to make kids feel even worse when they were sick by giving them homework and catch up work?
“You’ve only got a few things which we did today, but most teachers assumed that you’d be gone until the end of spring break” Vanessa said.
“I guess you’re right” Karen said, smiling. “I won’t have school for 3 weeks! How cool is that?” She high-fived us, because, even if three weeks are filled with boring homework and assignments, they are “holidays”, aren’t they?
When I went home, I finished my homework after watching a bit of television and checking my e-mail. Bored, I wandered up to my room and got out the red, leather bound book, the one that mom had given me a bit ago. Opening to a random page, I saw some information on changing weather from nice, sunny, weather to natural disasters.
“If you change a pleasant day, like a sunny, warm day in May, to a natural disaster, which includes tornadoes, floods, flash floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes, the weather system will be disrupted horribly. We advice you not to do this as this will not benefit anyone, except for maybe you. We also believe that this is very disruptive to both animals and plants, especially ones which rely on good weather or weather cycles to survive. Changes in the population or health of a species of flora or fauna can have a drastic effect on the ecosystem which they live in, which will cause other fauna or other flora to be affected by this too. Though people can get away with changes like this, they can be horrible for small, regular, ecosystems, especially ones which live in temperate or humid zones. As we all know, from normal natural disasters, they can cause horrible deaths, and hurt people and animals, and destroy houses, or even trees or other elements of nature.”
Wow! I thought, wondering where the author got so much information from. I could not believe that things like that could have so many consequences, even if they randomly occurred in nature, and we were still living to that day. At this time, I felt sorry for all the people who had ever had to deal with anything like this, even if it didn’t directly affect them, maybe if it affected their friends or relatives. I couldn’t really imagine what would happen if I got into a situation like that, because where we lived, the biggest disaster which could occur with the weather, without me changing it, of course, was a bad thunderstorm. This would over flood gutters, and perhaps have a few raccoons looking for new homes, but other than that it was a pretty harmless weather cycle where we lived, allowing my limits on changing the weather to even more subtle and easy things. However, I didn’t want to use my gift much, as it made me horribly tired the times I had tried. I flipped a few pages on from the current page, where it showed the effects of the opposite change, the change of bad to good.
The page that I had just turned to focused on changing things from bad to good, which I found interesting. It showed both shifting small things, like a dull day to a bright day, and big things, like completely eliminating a tsunami or a big tornado. “If you shall choose to change bad to good, you are a good person” it said “However, changing good to bad can also have it’s consequences, though it may not completely make sense to you. You see, even changing good to bad can change the ecosystem. For example, a herd of wild sheep may have been anticipating rain, based on the clouds, and may have decided to graze less because of it, and because they would expect that rain would bring more water, which would, in turn, bring more crops. If you were to cut off this rain, there would not be an introduction of more water into the ecosystem, leaving the crops worse off, and sometimes even letting the plants dry out completely. Things like this could hurt the horses, or even kill them, because they would not be prepared for this. Whenever you think of changing the weather like this, you must think of the consequences it will bring. Do these consequences seem more than balanced by what you are helping? If they are, then you are probably doing something which is right, and therefore, eventually, the ecosystem, which, believe it or not, also includes people, will eventually benefit. If it does not seem to balance out your actions, chances are that you would be better off leaving the mostly predictable and complex structure of the weather alone, because you would not want to do anything to harm the world”
I sat in my fuzzy purple reading chair for awhile, digesting what the book had said. I wondered if what I had done a long time ago, which was changing the weather for Karen’s outdoor birthday party, was good. Had it hurt anyone, or any animals? Made anyone disappointed? I really hoped not, because I would have been sad to have wrecked someone’s day. As I slowly digested all that I had read, I started drifting off.
In my deep sleep, I had a dream, focused about the weather. I dreamt that I was in the middle of a tsunami, standing at the beach, watching the giant wave approach. I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. I tried to scream, but my lips wouldn’t make a sound. I looked around, and saw hundreds of innocent people, running away from the wave. But the wave was quicker than them, roaring and splashing crystal drops onto the already wet sand. As they tried to run quicker and quicker, the wave continued on. Just as the wave was about to envelop them in a foamy white, I closed my eyes. Everything was frozen here, though I could still here the loud hum of the wave, I couldn’t hear the people. They had gone silent. The wave’s sound gradually faded away, as what I saw became pure black. Concentrating on saving the people, I imagined a perfect sea without a giant wave. I imagined that I heard the sounds of seagulls, and the light, petite, waves brushing up against the sand. I imagined the soft sea breeze, blowing at my hair, pushing it into my eyes, not the ferocious winds that I was feeling. I imagined the smell of the sea, but the salty, airy sea, not the giant, catastrophic wave which was approaching. Focusing on the image, the sounds, the smells, and the soft feel of the waves against my feet and the wind in my hair, I opened my eyes. Here I was, standing on a beach. There was not giant wave, just the small waves that you would typically see at a beach. I saw a four or five year old walk by on the wet sand in front of me, carrying a bright pink bucket filled with dry sand. I heard kids laughing, teasing each other, and throwing bread at the seagulls, which had swooped down from over my head to land on the smooth golden sand. I felt the waves come in between my toes, washing sand into every crevice in my feet, making them sting. Finally, I could move again, I could speak again. I was so happy, seeing how I had just saved hundreds of people’s lives. As I took in this scene, inhaling the crisp sea air, everything faded to white as I heard mom call “Dinner! Get down here everyone!”