“Chloe!” my mom called. “You're going to be late for your first day of school! Move!”.  I groaned. School was not my favorite place to be. I dragged myself out of bed to get ready. Once I freshened up, I headed down to the kitchen. Today, it was lit up with the sun, who choose to be extra bright today. My mom set breakfast in front of me, and as I ate, I got bombarded with all the things I needed to do. “Okay, sweetie, I know this is going to be hard for you, moving into a new school and all, but just for today, you need to be on your best behavior.” I nodded, more focused on my breakfast than her. “Please, Chloe, you need to form a good first impression on your teachers!” mom chirped. “I doubt they would like me anyways...” I mumbled. But my mom didn’t hear. She just rambled on and on and on. Mom talked a lot when she got nervous. Though I truly appreciate her worrying for me, I was glad she stopped talking when my brother, as slow as a turtle, stretched into the room. “Good morning!” he yawned. “Kevin,” my mom said patiently, “go get dressed for school”. He grunted and inched out of the room.
Bracing myself for the shunning to begin, I stepped into the cold morning air, watching my breath make little puffs in the air. Five minutes later, the school bus rumbled into view, and stopped in front of my house. I put my hood up, and went into the bus. I gagged. The first thing that I noticed was the smell. The putrid stench smelled like a pizza that got shoved into a smelly old gym shoe, and rotted there for a week. Blocking my nose from the foul smell, I looked around for an empty seat that was next to a person that looked nice.
“Come on girl!” cried the bus lady, “I haven’t got all day, just waiting for you to think about the meaning of life!”. A few kids snickered. Embarrassed, I slide into the nearest seat next to me. Sitting next to the window, was a girl who looked like she was just dressed by a professional clothes designer. I took one look at her smug face and already knew who she was. She was the popular girl of the school, the rich one, the total snob. I took my hood off and sank into my seat. All of a sudden, her face morphed into a wonderful, sweet smile.
“Your must be the new kid. Right?” she said. I knew my mom would want me to make friends with absolutely anyone I meet, so I gave a sweet smile back at her, and said “Yep!”.  The girl giggled cheerfully. Wow, maybe I judged her wrong, maybe she really wanted to make friends with me. After all, her giggle did seem pretty sincere. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Er, um- Chloe.” I fidgeted. I was freaking out inside. What if she puts two and two together? Will she figure out who my dad is? If she did, she’ll probably blab it to the whole school, and then it’ll be Minnesota Middle School all over again. Hopefully, maybe she wouldn’t ask what my last name is. But just then, I asked for too much. Once again, her face morphed, this time, into a nasty grin. “What’s your last name Chloe?” Just by the way she said my name, I knew she that the knew my secret. I looked too much like my dad. Too many facial similarities. I looked too much like the man who killed 11 people. “Malsyloration” I said, in a barely audible whisper.
It’s funny how fast a group of 30 kids can get can get quiet after hearing some surprising news. It’s also surprising how loud a girl can tell something to a group of kids without actually seeming like a maniac.
“Hey!” the girl said yelled. “This new kid here is the daughter of Mark Malsyloration!” she said. I sunk into my seat and buried my face into my hands. Everyone on the bus gasped. Lucky for me, the bus stopped in front of the school and the doors swung open. I ran out and made a beeline for my first class. I knew that this piece of gossip was going to spread around the school like wildfire. I scrambled into my classroom, finding out that nobody else was in it. I went to the seat that was at the back of the class room and plunked my stuff down. A tear traced down my cheek. All I wanted was for people not to judge me based on what my father did. I wasn’t like him. I didn’t even know him. He left us when I wasn’t even 1. The only  reason I know how he looked like was because my mom still has their wedding picture. I wiped the tears off my face.  This wasn’t time for self pity. Right now I needed to figure out how was going to survive school.  Kids started to trickle in, shooting me looks that were only slightly better than the look they would give to the old piece of gum that was mixed up with dog poop and found at the bottom of their shoe. I did my best to cover my face but I doubt that would help.
Finally, the bell rang, the teacher walked in. “Hello everyone, my name is Mrs. Cohort, and I plan on having a very interesting year with all of you.” Mrs. Cohort looked exactly like those stereotypical teachers that you see on TV. She was an ancient lady with gray hair pulled up into a tight bun and dull gray glasses that sat on the tip of her nose, she also had had a stern expression, that said you will probably die of boredom in my class, deal with it! She also looked strangely like a cat.  Then, she began to read the names of of the attendance roll. The popular girl who ruined my reputation at this school was named Natalie Beddy. The boy to the right of me was Jake Glox. When Mrs. Cohort saw my name on her list, she gave out a small squeak. “Chloe Malsyloration!” she gasped.
“Here” I tried to say as normal as possible. After Mrs. Cohort regained her composure, she said,“Mrs. Malsyloration, would you mind having a seat up here in the front?”. She cleared her throat. I could tell she just wanted to keep an I on me, suspecting that I was a trouble maker. “Switch seats with Adam over here.” She pointed to a mousy boy who sat right in front of the teachers desk. Adam grabbed his stuff and scrambled to my seat, his eyes wide with fear as I walked by. On my way up to the front of the classroom, I felt every pair of eyes in the classroom staring at me, silently judging me, maybe some even preparing how they’re going to taunt me during brunch. After she read the role, Mrs. Cohort started to read all the rules from the student planner. And I mean all  the rules. The most exciting thing that happened in that period was someone sneezing.
Once the bell rang, there was a mad rush to get out of the class. In that rush, a boy with a boastful look on his face stumbled over my backpack.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” I squealed. I already had enough people hating me, I didn’t want more.
“Hey Mrs. Murder, you trying to kill me?” he raged. He shoved me.
“I’m sorry! I promise it won’t happen again!” I said. He towered over me when a voice from the back of the class piped up.
“Hey!” it said. “Leave her alone!”. The girl that the voice came from tromped up to the boy. “Logan, just stop! She’s new here, and besides, you didn’t even fall!” she pointed out. Logan grunted, and left. Wow, it must take a lot of guts to say that to a guy two feet taller than you. “You okay?” asked the girl.
“Yeah, thanks...” I replied. The girl had curly red hair and a face full of freckles.  I wasn’t used to people talking to me at school, much less being nice to me. I hesitated. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Oh, my name’s Jasmine, but you can call me Jazzie.” she replied. She seemed really cheerful.
Hey!” she said as if an idea just popped into her head. “Do you want to sit with me and a couple of friends for brunch?” she asked.
“Sure!” I said. I was pretty excited.
I never actually had any friends at school before. This is actually a chance to change my reputation of being the freak murder girl, so I took it. When she introduced me to her friends, they pretty much shunned me, like the people from my other schools. I guess she was the only one at this school who gave me a chance. But that’s okay, this itself was more than I was hoping for. Jassie and I spent the whole brunch talking. I got to know her better. She had three younger siblings, two brothers and one sister, and her parents were divorced. She actually lived pretty close to me. I thought sprung into my head. “Jassie, do you wanna come over after school, we can hang out a bit and do homework.” I asked.
“Hmm, lets see, do I have anything after school?” she thought to herself. “Nope! I’m good!” she said.
The bell rang and we headed our own ways. After school, we met up by the big oak tree at the front of the school. I grinned.
“Got everything?” I asked.
“Yup! Let’s go!” she smiled. Suddenly, that smile got replaced by a scowl. “Chloe, we have to go, like right now.”
“Okay....” I said a bit confused. “But what’s the rush?” I asked, picking up on her tension.
“Come on, let's go, quick, start walking, and fast”. She took of.
“Jeez, Jassie! What’s wrong?” I said, annoyed by her lack of answering. “Okay, I think we lost them.” she replied with a sigh of relief.
“Remember that boy you tripped in first period” she said.
“Yeah..” I said
“His girlfriend is Natalie Beddy, the queen of the school” she told me, “and she probably told him to tease you, and he is the school bully, not good.”
“So, i’m guessing that he followed me outside so he could follow Natalie’s orders.” Now I understood why Jassie sounded so scared. But i’ve already seen the worst of bullying.. I got teased a lot in my old schools.
“Listen, Jassie, I appreciate you caring, but how bad can it be?” I asked. “I mean, I got bullied a lot in my other schools, so i’m sure I already experienced it”.
“Chloe, you don’t know how bad he can be, trust me, I know.”
We reach the house and, luckily, my mom wasn’t home, or else she would have scared Jassie away with a bunch of questions. My mom would be at work now.  We plunked our stuff down and sat on the couch after I grabbed us a couple of cookies.
“So, what did you do this summer?” I asked.
“Oh!” she replied, clearly wanting to burst with all of her stories. She launched into an adventure she had in Mexico, and then said “and after that, I got a call from principal Morand saying the she wanted me to befriend you, the new girl at sc-” she stopped herself abruptly.
Immediately, she knew she wasn’t supposed to say that. I felt like I just got punched in the stomach. Jassie really didn’t want to be friends with me. Principle Morand just asked her to. More than I felt sad, I felt mad. I felt mad at Jassie, for faking everything. I felt mad at Principle Morand, for thinking I was so pathetic that I couldn’t even make friends. I was mad at my dad, who made those stupid wrong decisions. For putting an end to innocent lives. Most of, I was mad at the world, for being so unfair. I stormed up to my room and slammed the door shut. I heard Jassie rushing up the stairs. She tried to open the door, but I locked it. I heard her calling me name and saying she’s sorry about a trillion times. She was crying to, I could tell by the quiver of her voice. I didn’t care. I bawled in my pillow. “Why?” was the question the crossed my mind the most. Why can’t people change? Why do people think that i’m like my dad? After 15 minutes I heard Jassie leave.
After one more hour of crying and thinking of life, I thought crossed my mind that I never thought of before- running away. Come on coaxed the bad side of my brain  You can definitely get away with it! It could work, my mom won't be home in two hours, and Kevin is mostly always out. I got out of bed and went to work. I emptied out my school bag and shoved in a bunch of warm clothes and my sleeping bag. I also brought a flashlight and some duct tape, just incase. Now, I thought, where should I go? Just then, I had an epiphany. There was an old tree house build a couple blocks from my house. There was supposed to be a shopping complex build there, but a bunch of people started protesting not to cut down the trees, and after a few years, someone build a treehouse. That would be the story of my future home. I left the house and started my journey to the tree house. I reached the tree house right before it got dark. I climbed up the ladder carefully because it was cracking. I figured this must be really old and prayed to god that it wouldn’t collapse under my weight. I swung the door open and closed it tightly. It didn’t have a lock, so I used the duct tape to seal it shut.
I took out my flashlight and shined it around. It was really dusty and had a few cracks in it, but other than that, It was fine. It looked like it was build for a little girl. It had a shelf full of dolls, and another filled with books. I set up my sleeping bag, put on a few more layers of clothes, since it started to get chilly. I wondered what was happening at my house right now. My mom should be home right now. She would be worried sick right now. I started to doubt my decision of coming here, when I remembered that nobody liked me. Well, except my family, but that was pathetic. Tears started to form in my eyes as I thought about what happened today. I check the time, still crying, It was 9:30. I stayed up more, and finally cried myself to sleep.
I woke up the next day to the sound of my own stomach. I am so stupid. I thought to myself. I forgot to pack food. And water. The time was 6:30. Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to sneak into my house, grab some food and water, and head out, before my mom and brother woke up. I hesitated, but finally, my hunger got the best of me. I headed down my tree house, not bothering to get and stuff, because I knew I’d be back. I cautiously strolled over to my house, making sure nobody noticed me. I slide into the side yard, finding that the side door was unlocked as always. I slide into the house and crept to the kitchen. I tiptoed over to the fridge, but a floorboard creaked. I waited for my mother to barge into the room, but no one came. She was probably deep asleep. I got what I needed and headed to the side door when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Going somewhere?” My brother Kevin asked. I bolted to the door, but Kevin was much too fast for me. He grinned. “Don’t try to compete with me Chloe.” he said. “Mom! I got her!” he hollered. Immediately, my mother burst into the room. She let out a yelp of joy. she raced over and hugged me so hard that I actually felt my ribs crack.
“Oh Chloe! Where have you been?” she asked. Then, her face morphed into a mad face. She slapped me playfully in the arm. “Don’t ever do that again!” she yelled. Then she hugged me. I started to cry.
“I’m sorry mom!” I said through my tears. “It’s just that school has been so tough and- and” I started to cry again. Just then, the doorbell rang. My mom went to open it, and it was Jassie. She was holding all of my stuff from the tree house. “Hi Mrs. M, I’v been looking for her and here are some things that I found. I think they are hers.” Chloe said. She was about to say something else, but then she saw my. She literally dropped everything and tackled me with a hug.
“Chloe!” she exclaimed. “Chloe, I’m sorry” she said. “And for the record, I don’t care even if principle Morand didn’t tell me to be nice to you, you are still my friend.” she said as she crushed me with another one of her bear hugs. That brought tears to my eyes. And that day, I went to school with a smile on my face.