Owlings and Demons by T. Richardson (polar express read aloud .txt) 📕

“Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle,” I said. My name was Erica, a.k.a Miss Motionless. “Funny joke, Adam,” I said. Everyone started looking at me. “Learn to be less disgusting and maybe you’ll have a chance with Kelly.” Kelly was my best friend; I could rely on her with my life.
I met up with her at a locker room. “Kelly?” I said. She was spitting out her lollypop before class had started again. “Don’t be such a punk!” I yelled. “Have some sense you can’t lick a lollypop once and throw it away and take a new one after class and do the same process over again.” I took out her lollypop and shoved it in my mouth. I mean if she wasn’t going to eat it, who would?
She went towards her locker and spun it open and a dozen of books fell out. I leaned against another locker besides hers looking out into space wondering why she was so irresponsible and unorganized but still got incredible grades.
One thing that I left out though was that, Kelly was special, very special. “Kell Kell!” yelled Adam. As he was passing nearby with his friends, he gathered their book bags and put them on her back while she was picking up her books from off of the ground. “Would you mind taking our bags Kelly-bear?” Adam said. Kelly smiled and nodded, with her In Love smile. He turned to me. “You can take mine if you’d like,” Adam said. “As if I gave you a choice.”
I kicked him in the shin. He then walked off hopping on one foot. It was really sad that Kelly did everything for him and he treats her as a slave. “What was that!?” I asked her. She shook her head, she barely ever talks. She never talked. “Leave me alone,” she said suddenly. I didn’t act like this was abnormal, I mean it wasn’t, but for her very much so. So I reacted as any person should react to another saying leave me alone:
“Kelly! You aren’t deaf?!” I asked. She walked away holding the bags unbalanced. I began to follow her and then she stopped. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Don’t follow me, go home, I have unfinished business to do here, ok?” I pretended that I understood completely. I held her unorganized books in my hands which I had shoved in her locker and closed. I then threw out her distasteful lollypop. Once in the garbage, I would rather no one take it out.

The next evening; Saturday, I had my mother drive me over to Kelly’s house; it seemed as if they were setting up for a funeral. Kelly was facing toward her father and they were in the middle of a conversation.
“Uhhhh… who died?” I asked, chuckling at the same time surprised I wasn’t informed about this. She turned towards me her eyes red and weary. My mom had already left and gone home, she had a plan that if I left, Kelly’s parents would have no choice other than to take me home. “You ok?” I asked.
“How disrespectful of you,” She muttered. “I am in the middle of something, and you don’t even aware me you’re visiting! Go home, now, Erica. I don’t want you here.” I didn’t move where I had already planted my feet. She looked behind her towards the coffin and it opened unexpectedly. She turned towards a person next to her, Adam. Both of them turned towards me and counted to three with their dainty fingers and gave me a harsh push while sand was blown into my eyes.
The last thing I saw was a creature rising from the coffin. “No!” yelled Adam. Every one of the people turned towards the voice that was attracting them so quickly. Their eyes were also filled with sand.
Kelly’s father turned towards me, “What is she doing here?” he asked.
“Father, I don’t know, she just showed up.” Her father was filled with anger and rage and so was the rest of her family there.
“What did I see fly out of that coffin?” I asked.
“You saw something?” her father asked. I nodded, afraid to talk towards him because of his usual and constant anger towards me.
“If none of us can see it, how can she?” asked Adam. “What are you?!”
I didn’t know the answer to these kinds of questions, especially ones I have never encountered, so I shrugged. “You have to be something,” Kelly said. “The sand is a blessing to all immortals that are approached by it, mortals by the way, burn to dust but you didn’t. If you don’t have an answer let us skip this, what in the world did you see?”
I looked around with everyone glaring at me. “There are possibilities of what you could’ve seen though,” said Adam. “You could’ve seen any animal, creature, insect? Did you see anything like that?” Voices were popping in and out of my head. I couldn’t understand what to say, the very pointless thing about these asked questions were that, I had absolutely no idea of anything that they were talking about.
All of a sudden, Adam was being nice, Kelly was talking, and her father for the first time didn’t say anything that could make me want to kill him. The worst part about this is that everyone is expecting that I’m immortal, trust me if I were I think I’d know by now. What was Kelly saying to me, the sand was a blessing to all immortals? If you weren’t immortal you’d burn to death, but she didn’t. Then what in the world was she?!


I guess I hadn’t realized the amount of time I was taking to think because the next thing I know was that an old woman put her hands on my shoulders and yelled, “Please tell us! What did you see?”
“I-I saw,” I stuttered. The family started smiling happily knowing that wherever that man went was going to be a great place. “I saw a horse, with wings and a horn in the middle of its forehead. A rainbow also surrounded it,” I lied terribly, but they fell hard for it.
The creature looked nothing like this. Dark black, horns for sure---but on both sides of the head. It was not the devil; it had a bull looking face with brick red eyes, and nostrils that flared.
Kelly’s family began to applaud. “Come inside while we have a feast!” yelled Kelly’s grandmother. “We have never met another of our kind before. Did you know we all turn into animals in our own rates? Old people like I, turn to our animals at old age. Young people like you, turn at young age, has to do a lot about time period your born in.”
I nodded; Kelly and Adam were standing beside each other looking at me. “They are the perfect granddaughter and grandson. Siblings are usually mean to one another but they are great,” Kelly’s grandmother complimented.
They were siblings?!

Adam walked towards me and held his grandmothers hand and kissed her forehead and as I began to walk through the door, Adam slowly stepped in front of me. “You’re lying to my family, what did you see?” Kelly asked approaching me.
“What are you?” I asked her, “How come I am the only one who saw something?” Kelly began to redden with anger. “I am supposed to be an Owling, my whole family is, I can judge by whom you are, and you are nothing close to my people. What are you? A matter of fact, no Owling can see with the sand in our eyes so according to you it was no blessing. Since you don’t want to tell me what you are, let’s hope it’s a curse.”
She walked off. I covered my eyes and cupped my hands pulling my hair back into a ponytail. Her front yard was completely emptied of people. I didn’t want to go inside feeling the hate from any of my friends, well, not too much of friends anymore.
I stood off of their property and looked at the people smiling. “Oh my gosh,” I whispered. “This cannot be happening.” I shook all of it off, walking away slowly. I could hear the sounds of cars roaming on the streets. Behind me I could hear a voice,
“Hey, move out of the way!” he wouldn’t slow down. I ran for my life, I moved to the other side of the street and he just followed me with his car accelerating, he was trying to kill

me! I knew that this eventually wasn’t going to end well, so I stopped running and waited for myself to die. I could hear the car’s screeching wheels slowing down, but he still slightly bumped into me and I fell. He came out of his car, and looked at me. “Are you dead?” he asked me.
“No!” I yelled. “Why’d you stop running? I thought you’d know I’d eventually stop chasing you with my car as soon as you reached the main street,” he complained.
“Friends

do these jokes to each other!” I said. “Not random strangers off the street!”
He chuckled, “How old are you nine or something? I’m pretty mature for my age, 16, and I sure do act like it. By the way, like my new ride?” I stood up surprised that he didn’t even help me like mature 16 year olds should.
I nodded. I began to walk away.
“Did you see that? Over there, I mean, at Kelly’s house.” I nodded. “You little liar. 'Oh I saw a horse and it had a horn in its head and a rainbow surrounding it!'” he mocked. “Owlings are saints,” he explained. “Unlike us who are not. I also found it really sad that you didn’t even know who you are. Or shall I say what

you are.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” I said. He looked into Kelly’s window, where Kelly was watching upon us. We both waved discretely. “Let’s take a walk, cause Kelly knows what we are and I don’t want her to know much information.” He walked beside me in the direction of my home. “Well, we are demon like, we transform into actual demon at the age of 70,when we live for a full 70 years, but the actual demon is inside of us. We can use it for whatever, and demons can't really be seen when their souls are risen from their bodies, so what I’m saying is that Kelly’s granddad is not supposed to be an Owling, he was a demon. We have the powers to see him since we're f the same species. So where are you going?” he said.
This dude was crazy.

“I’m heading the direction of my apartment. Since my