CHAPTER 1 : A WITCH IN PALMS CREEK

Charlie was a victim of the law of averages. She lived in an average house in an average town. Her parents worked average jobs. Their temperaments were none too sweet and none too mean. A middle child, four years younger and four years older than her two siblings respectively. She had a perfectly average life, which was a match set for her perfectly average face. There were 25 students in her class and Charlie routinely scored 13th in most subjects. She was conveniently 13 years old as of July 13th of this year. And just as it is that no person can be in all ways perfectly average, or at least only astronomically few people can, which in these cases their averageness is quite unique making them one in ten million, all of Charlie's averageness meant that there must be something that was quite unusual about her. Something that was far beyond usual unusualness. It was that ‘something’ that Charlie was now mulling over in her mind. 

While sitting atop a large stone on the corner of 113th pl; the cul de sac her house was on, Charlie was trying to decide whether or not she had supernatural powers. Before you laugh and write her off as a silly girl, let us observe the facts that surround the fearsome debate now raging in her mind. I’m sure many people feel they are invisible, One part of her brain told her But that can’t possibly explain all the strangeness the other part argued back. Let's go over it again. I was standing directly in front of the television for ten whole minutes and they both just stared as if looking right through me, they never once asked me to move. Her experiments have been getting bolder along with her suspicions that she was randomly turning invisible. But I could still see my hands and feet. I even remembered the mirror this time and could still see my reflection. That wouldn’t be possible if I was truly invisible. You see, she was not wholly given to fanciful delusion, the facts of the case could have convinced anyone. In fact you might now be wondering why she wasn’t already convinced. 

This was the difficulty. Along with being perfectly average Charlie had discovered two other things about herself. The first, that she was remarkably unlucky; an unfortunate byproduct of others being incredibly lucky. There was a thirteen year old boy who won the biggest prize at the town fair raffle five years in a row. He had obviously sucked up much of the luck from her age group. The only time she had won a prize it had been mrs. Macabee’s meat pie, which had spoiled in the hot sun. Her mother, in a none too sweet moment, made Charle eat a piece, for Mrs. Macabee was watching and her husband was the town's postman; everyone knows it best not to upset your postman and Mrs. Macabee would have been greatly offended if her generous contribution to the town fair raffle was scorned by its winner. Charlie choked the piece down and an hour later felt sick to her stomach. And while all the other kids enjoyed the fireworks; which was her favorite part of the fair each year, Charlie spent that evening with her head in a toilet bowl. If you still don’t don’t believe her to be unlucky, look just now, as Charlie was debating with herself, a garden hose from a few houses up sprung a leak and the water has been rushing down the gutter of the sidewalk to make a large puddle right at the corner where she is still sitting. And just as Charlie noticed this peculiar sight; a puddle in the middle of a sweltering august day, a car coming down the street took the sublime pleasure to run right through a street puddle and made a huge splash that soaked Charlie completely.  

This brings me nicely to the second thing that Charlie had discovered about herself. She often went remarkably unnoticed. It goes this way for middle children all over the world and Charlie was no exception. She got hammy downs from her sister and so her style was always four years out of fashion. But those clothes were too worn out by the time her younger sister could fit them and so little Caitln always dressed new and fresh. The novelty of regular accomplishments such as walking and talking, drawing pictures, becoming potty trained, being on a sports teams and all such normal firsts parents are so keen on embellishing and praising had been worn off by her older sister and since Charlie could not produce irregular accomplishments on account of her averageness…