Prologue



The darkness of the night is startling. Only one moon illuminates the black night. I want to look back for the transport, but I can't stand up. I can hear my ragged breath as my lungs try to adjust to the oxygen rich atmosphere. When I finally adjust enough to stand and look back, the transport is gone. I am alone.
I don't want to be here. I don't want to do what I was sent here to do, but I have no choice. So, I will do what I have to to succeed. My people don't look like the earthlings, but I need to blend in. I picture a human girl in my mind, and the tingling pain throughout my body signals the beginning of the morph. When the pain reaches it limit, making my body feel like its covered in flames, I know that I look human. Now it's time to move
My lungs burn, as I run between the buildings toward my destination. Thankfully, the layout of the streets is similar to that of the ones at home. It takes about 10 minutes of running to get to the earth girl's home. By the time I arrive, I am breathing harder than I ever had in my entire life.
I walk up to the door slowly, composing myself. I reach for the doorbell, but pull my hand back.
You can do this. You've been on missions harder than this before.

I force myself to think these words and ring the bell. When a girl who looks my age answers the door, I am inwardly startled, but I keep my eyes trained on hers. "Mina Carter?" I ask.



Chapter 1



A glance at the clock reveals that it’s 2:43 in the morning. I sigh. There’s no way that I can go back to sleep now. If I allow my body to slip through that wonderful portal, I know that I won’t be able to wake up in time to get ready for school.
For the past eighteen hours or so, I’ve had a very strong feeling in my gut that something was going to happen, something that would change my life forever. So far, my day has been horrendously uneventful.
I glance at the clock again, and only two minutes have passed. I go into the kitchen to get a glass of water. As I pass the front door, I hear a knock. I stop in my tracks, unsure of whether or not I imagined it. When I hear an identical pound, I know that it’s real. But who would be knocking on my door at 2:45 in the morning on a Tuesday?
I open the door to find a girl staring back at me. She is my age and even slightly resembles me. We have the same hair, the same face. The first difference that I notice is her eyes, and they are really freaking me out.
The porch light is on, but the bulb needs to be replaced. The light is faded, so I know I could be wrong. But something tells me that I couldn’t be more correct. Her eyes are pitch black.
She is tall, and most of it comes from her legs. Her silky black hair reaches down to the middle of her back. As she pulls her lips back into a smile, I realize that they are just the right size. Not too thin, but not too full either. Her teeth are perfectly straight, and the purest white that I've ever seen.
“Mina Carter?” she asks. I take a step back, shocked that she would know my name. I nod, and she pushes past me into the house. She looks around the place like she’s trying to find something. She lifts pillows, moves blankets, opens shades.
“Uh… not to be rude or anything, but, um, why are you here?” I had meant the question to sound more confident, more of a command than a question. But instead, it came out sounding exactly the way I feel. Scared.
She stops tearing my living room apart long enough to meet my gaze. “I’m supposed to be here,” she states simply. “They didn’t tell you? I’m a foreign exchange student.” She flashed me a smile that was supposed to win me over. “I’m your new sister.”
“It’s November,” I say after a moment. “Isn’t it a little late to be starting a foreign exchange program?” She shakes her head from side to side. “Where are your bags?” She mumbles something about “home” and I try not to roll my eyes. Something isn’t right here.
I tell her to wait in the living room and I go wake up my dad. “Dad,” I say, shaking his shoulder. “There’s someone here. She says that she’s our new foreign exchange student.” He gets up and rubs his eyes, then slips on a white t-shirt. His pale, bare feet make almost no sound as he treads down the short hallway to the living room.
I follow a few steps behind him, and turn the corner to see my father greeting the girl with a bear hug. He turns around to face me, but his right arms remains around the girl’s shoulder.
“Mina, this is Zola. You always said you wanted a sister. So I made some calls, and… well, happy birthday, baby.” He removes his arm from Zola’s shoulder and wraps me one of his hugs that I love so much. He glances over my shoulder and looks at the clock. “It’s almost three in the morning! Mina, why don’t you go get some sleep? I’ll let you stay home from school tomorrow. I’ll call the school in the morning, and then we can see about getting Zola enrolled as well.” He beams an award-winning smile, kisses the top of my head, and walks back to his room.
That leaves Zola and I in the living room. I can’t read her facial expressions or body language, and that bothers me. Usually, I can read people like an open book with large font. With Zola, I’ll need the key to unlock the secrets within.
“I guess I’ll show you the guest room,” I tell her, leading the way. We turn right at the top of the stairway, and I open the second door on the left. “It’s pretty cold in here,” I say. “We usually don’t heat the second floor in the winter, because no one ever comes up here.” I look around the room, memorizing what’s there. “There’s several extra blankets in the closet, and if that’s not enough, there should be more blankets in the room right across the hall.” I point to the door, and then turn to face her again.
“I’ll be honest with you, Zola. I’m not too pleased with you showing up here at three in the morning, and I don’t trust you one bit.” I take a deep breath before going on. “I’m keeping an eye on you. Don’t do anything stupid, because I will know.” With that, I shut the door and go back down the stairs.
Once in my own bedroom, I turn the radio on. There aren’t too many good songs on this early, but I need something to distract me from our unexpected guest.
I toss and turn for about an hour, and eventually I fall into a deep, dreamless, black sleep.



Chapter 2



My eyes are wide, and I can’t sleep, even though it’s early in the morning on this planet. This might be my only chance to sleep for days, but try as I might, my mind will not shut down. Instead, it races wildly, full of thought.
When I arrived at this house, I was supposed to find a message containing the particulars of my mission. I searched the main room for a transmitter or a holograph messenger, but found nothing. Now I am stuck on this planet, until I find the message and complete my mission.
I find my thoughts wandering to my home planet, Tecara, and force myself to pull them back to reality. I don’t need to be homesick, and though there are many good memories there, I also want to distract myself from the bad ones.
I pull and prod at my mind until I am able to put up a wall within it. The mental block forces my thoughts to slow and my body to relax. I get as close to sleep as possible, letting everything within me shut down, but my eyes stay wide open.
After letting the hours tick slowly away, eventually I realize that the sun is rising. It seems to rise faster than on my home planet. Even though I am here on business, I am still curious to see what an Earth sunrise looks like, so I stand and walk to the window.
I pull up the blinds from the small window, but drop them quickly, using my hands to shield myself from the burning brightness. I stumble back to the bed and wait for the bright blotches to leave my eyes. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the sun is brighter here than on Tecara, and I grew accustomed to the darkness of a single moon in the night.
When I can see normally once again, I crack the blinds just a bit to let in light and look around the room. Besides the bed, there is nothing but a single dresser and a mirror that leans against the wall. I was hoping that my instructions were hidden somewhere in here, but when I scan the room, I find nothing.
To bide my time, I walk up to the mirror. I haven’t seen what I look like since the morph, so when I peer at my reflection, I’m completely startled. My skin is a light tan color and my hair is light brown. My eyes, which haven’t changed at all, are the only recognizable part of my body.Their pitch black color contrasts my hair unnaturally, which I hate.
I pause a moment, and search my memory for a different image of an earth girl. Eventually I find a girl who’s a little darker. I morph again, but it doesn’t burn as much this time because my hair and skin tone only change a little. When I look into the mirror again, I am satisfied that my eyes look more human.
Suddenly, I hear a knock on the bedroom door.



Chapter 3



I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.
I think this over and over as I trudge up the stairs. After I finally fell asleep, and slept for about an hour, I awoke to the sound of my dad’s coffee maker alarm. While I made my breakfast, my dad talked me into inviting Zola down for pancakes.
Reluctantly, I agreed. Now I find myself standing outside her bedroom door trying to figure out what to say to her. After a few minutes of empty options, I decide to just knock on the door and see how it plays out.
I rap my knuckles on the door and a moment later it swings open to reveal a girl that I’ve never seen before. Her features are still the same, and I can’t forget the black abyss-like eyes that sit on each side of her face. But her skin is much darker now. Earlier, her skin was a light olive color, but now, her skin tone is that of someone who spends a lot of time in the sun. Her hair has also changed. I remember the light color standing out in the darkness of the night. This morning, her hair is almost as dark as her eyes.
I realize that I’m glaring at her, and her expression mirrors mine. It almost like a stand off, neither of us backing down. I can tell that these next few months will be difficult, now that she’s here.
“My dad’s making pancakes,” I say, breaking the silence. “He wants to know if you’re gonna come down and eat with us.” Her head tilts down a fraction of an inc, which I take as a nod.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” she says, shutting the door an inch from my nose.
I go back downstairs and finish making breakfast. I’m a little irritated from the exchange upstairs. But my dad’s good attitude and cheery smile, paired with his jokes, bring my mood back up. My ear to ear smile fades when I notice Zola over in the corner by the fridge. She’s in different clothes now, even though I don’t remember ever seeing her with a suitcase or bag of clothes.
For most of the meal, no one speaks. My dad keeps looking between Zola and I, and I can tell that he’s curious about the situation between us. I mouth to him that I’ll fill him in on everything later and he gives me a nod almost as small as the one Zola gave me.
Finally, my dad announces all the plans for the day. “You guys obviously won’t be going to school today, because it was such a late night. But we still have things to do.” He points his fork at Zola, but talks to me. “You’re going to take her to the store and get some groceries. The list is on the fridge, but you also need to pick up some cake mix, frosting, and whatever else you want for tonight. We’re having your birthday dinner tonight, and you can invite anyone you want, and that way Zola will also know a few people before school.”
He swings his head to look at Zola. “I’m going to enroll you in school so that you’ll be able to go tomorrow.”
She nods and flashes him a smile. “Sounds like fun,” she says. I don’t know If she’s being sarcastic or not, so I roll my eyes.
I leave the room so that I can shower before I head out for the day. As I get dressed, I think about Zola. Everything about her is a mystery. Her eyes, her changing hair and skin tones, and even the way that she showed up in the middle of the night. I don’t have time to do my hair, but it’s okay because I’ll do it before the party. My pegged jeans are really comfy and so is my sweater.
I shut the bedroom door behind me and walk into the living room. My dad has already left, so Zola is just standing by the door. “You ready?” I ask, as I grab the money and grocery list off the counter. She nods and follows me out the door.
I only live about a half a mile away from the grocery store, so walking there and back isn’t a problem at all. The nice weather makes it even nicer to walk. Neither of us say anything until we get to the store, and I don’t mind a bit. Once I get inside, I rip the grocery list in half and hand the top to Zola, telling her to pick up everything.



Chapter 3

Impressum

Texte: Cassie Hoene and Juniper Lee
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.12.2011

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Widmung:
To Bailey Without her this book literally wouldn't exist.