Prologue
A small, pretty girl lay in the pale arms of her mother, Marie Walker. The girl was three hours old and still nameless. Marie and her husband, Marcus Walker, looked at their daughter, but no name came. Something about every name they mentioned seemed wrong. Markus’s hand mindlessly began to stroke Marie’s fine, sunset colored hair. As their daughter’s fourth hour alive began to draw to a close, something was wrong with Marie. Her breathing began to get shallow, irregular, and short.

“Ciao, Bella,” whispered Marie as her last breath left her beautiful body.
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“C. Bella,” whispered Mrs. Mineo, who was definitely losing her voice, and she was rarely sick. The last time Mrs. Mineo was out, not for something school or family related was when she got food poisoning, I overheard her telling another teacher that it was horrible. The sub was fun, though; we played some interesting word games.

“Here,” I replied, in my naturally quiet voice.
Now, I know you must be thinking, who names their daughter C. Bella? Well, that’s not my real name; my real name is Ciao Bella. Still really odd, right? Well, those words were the last ones my mother spoke and my father decided, in her memory, to name me that and use her name, Marie, as my middle name. So, I’m pretty much a living replica of my mother, the one quality I don’t have that I have been told she had, was being really outgoing and loving to talk. I got her simple but naturally pretty face and stunning, sunset orange hair. My father died when I was five, he died from the depression he’d had since my mother died. I never got to hear his real laugh; the one everyone talked about when he died the one that had attracted my mother. When he died I was put in a wonderful orphanage. Usually people think of orphanages as places where kids are abused and not fed healthily. I was put into St. Mary’s orphanage for homeless girls for a year and a half until my best friend’s parents adopted me because they wanted a second daughter, but one their daughters age. I still consider that day to be the best day of my life.

School was uneventful and, as usual, enjoyable. Most students don’t like school, but I am an exception. It’s like grammar; there is a rule, but a bunch of exceptions. After school, though, I also enjoy a lot. In the fall Krystin (my “sister”) and I both play field hockey, then in the spring, we both play lacrosse. Our field hockey season was great, we seven games, lost three, and tied five. Tomorrow we have another lacrosse game against some school none of the team has heard of. The winter is the less exciting, we just go home, do home work, and watch TV if anything good is on.

“Hurry up, Bella, Mom’s waiting,” said Krystin Kain. Krystin has the same color hair as me, but has a similar face, but hers is rounder than mine. Still, sometimes people still mix us up. I slide into my favorite shoes, flat like shoes with a very small wedge heel, and run and slide down the hallway to where Krystin is standing.

“Alright, I’m here, let’s go,” I announce. We walk out to Krystin’s Mom’s car, a shiny Toyota Corolla. We climb into the backseat and buckle our seat belts.

“How was practice, girls,” asks Krystin’s mom, Rose.

“Great, we actually played a game, and we only did a little of the usual passing and defending drills,” answered Krystin.

“Good, you’ll be ready for the game. Tomorrow when you get close to school call me and tell me when to pick you girls up,” instructed Rose.

Back at home Krystin and I sat at the turquoise blue table in our room. The room is giant and a set of hanging blue and purple strings separate our halves. Today we are working on my half of the room, my half of the room is completely turquoise blue and Krystin’s is all purple. Krystin says she gets a headache when she stays on my half of the room for too long because of the brightness, which is why we often do homework on her side.

“Bella,” moaned Krystin. I leaned over and put the iPod we were listening to on pause.

“Yes?” I ask.

“What is family in Chinese, It’s the character I always forget?” asks Krystin. I pick up her pen and scribble the pretty character at the end of the sentence and read the sentence over.

“Krystin, you need to put zai jia in front of the action verb. Do you even listen? We’ve been told a hundred times by Mrs. Ding,” I say fixing her sentence.
“Okay, I’ll remember for next time. Would you mind checking over the rest of my sentences?” she asks hopefully.
“Only if you check my math homework,” I reply. Math is my worst, and the most boring, subject. For me it is too complicated and confusing with all of the formulas and processes.

“Okay,” she agreed delightedly. I handed her my math sheet and she tossed her Chinese sentence translation sheet over to me.
*
* *

One, two, two, three, one, one, I thought. Krystin’s hands rhythmically hit mine in the pattern I just made up. We did this just to amaze our friends, because one of us could make a pattern up and the other would follow the pattern as if we had known about it the whole time. When we did this our friends always called us twins, one because we know exactly what the other is thinking and we look a lot alike except for our eye color, my eyes are and electric green, and Krystin’s are a mysterious gray-blue.

“Middle school, quiet down,” came Mrs. Silone’s commanding voice from the speakers in the assembly room. “I have an announcement to make. As many of you may know, we have a dance tonight in the big gym. It starts at 7:30 and goes to 10:00, please make sure your parents know when to pick you up, we don’t want anyone staying longer than they need.” The room erupted into cheers of delight.

“I can’t wait,” said Lilyiana enthusiastically. “If only we didn’t have our lacrosse game. If it was practice I would skip, but I love the games.”

“Drat, we forgot to tell mom about the dance last night,” realized Krystin.

“I’ll call her on the bus and tell her to take us out to Pei Wei instead of Houlihans,” I suggested.

“Great idea, you know Bella, you’re a genius,” complimented Krystin.

I blush and mutter, “Not really”

We continue walking until Lilyiana, Krystin, and I part for our different classes. Krystin is in Lilyiana’s class and I’m in my other friend Alicia’s class.