This was written for the very first contest I ever entered on Wattpad: Lenovo's Back to School contest back in 2016, I think...

I wanted to consolidate all those old standalones into my current collections, so here are the first three chapters of "The Memory of the Raven!"

PROLOGUE

Just see if this is the right turn and then you can turn around, I told myself, trying frantically to remember the instructions my mother had given me. Was I supposed to turn right or left at the Chinese shop? Had she even mentioned a Chinese shop?

My mother's memory is notoriously good, while mine is the exact opposite. She has eidetic memory, I show signs of amnesia on a daily basis. It is how we are.

Now, I was supposed to be picking up a present Mom had ordered for Chrissy from some cutesy knick knack shop deep in the city. Of course she had verbally relayed the directions rather than write them down. Of course my phone was dead, so Google Maps was useless. Of course I only had my handbook on ravens tucked in my pocket. I fingered its worn pages worriedly as I walked.

The streets had been getting progressively emptier and scarier. Many of the shops around me were boarded up, and the ones that weren't looked like they hadn't let the health inspector live to tell the tale. The Chinese shop that I was currently standing next to had grimy windows and through them, I could barely see a Chinese woman glaring at me menacingly. I glanced down at my new clothes from Kohl's and my Converse and sighed. I stuck out here like a sore thumb. At least I had had the common sense not to wear my authentic pearl earrings from my rich sea captain uncle.

Ha. Bet not too many girls can say that sentence.

Just one more turn, I repeated in my head. Then we'll go home and remind Mom of our bad memory.

I took a turn and froze.

A man was leaning against the wall. His skin was pale and webbed with blue veins. He was a gaunt and haggard-looking man, thoroughly disgusting. He straightened up and wobbled. Drunk. Aw, crap.

I began to back away, but he just snarled and I froze with fear.

"What are you doin' here, blackie? Shouldn'tcha be in the fields or something?"

Numbly, I registered his offensive words, but I was too shocked to say anything.

He began cussing, saying more and more vulgar words. Finally, I snapped to attention and began backing up faster, keeping my eyes on him.

He pulled out a gun.

I turned and ran.

There was a banging noise, loud, loud as fireworks.

And I toppled to the pavement.

CHAPTER ONE

The raven is one of the smartest animals in the world. In fact, its brain takes up 2% of its overall weight, which might not seem like a lot, but it's a lot more that we have. Ravens could be the most intelligent beings in the animal world, depending on how you're judging intelligence.

Nobody really pays attention to ravens. They are surprised when dolphins stand up to sharks and dogs travel miles to find their owners, but they seem to overlook when ravens fashion tools to fetch food or play practical jokes on their handlers.

Sometimes, I feel like the raven, overlooked and underappreciated, but I am nothing special in that regard. Every teenager has moments, sometimes days of self-doubt. I am not some depressed nobody. I have friends, I do well in school, I have a life. Only one thing sets me apart from all the other children in my school, and that is my leg.

After it happened, I absolutely said no to any pants that revealed more than a few inches above my ankle. The scar is ugly. The skin grew back strangely. There is a divot. Thank God it was only a .22 caliber bullet. If it had been buckshot or a 12 gauge or something like that...

*

My first day back to school is hell, of course.

"Ohmigod, RAVEN!" Kelly shrieks as she hurls herself at me. She stops and then gently hugs me as she notices the black brace encasing my leg. "Is it really that bad?" she whispers.

I finger my cane in my fingers. "Um, I'm still going to physical therapy. They say I should be fine with just the cane in, like, three months."

Georgia comes running up. "Oh, Raven," she says sadly as she stares at my jeans that show above the brace, so out-of-place in the sea of shorts my peers are wearing, as if expecting to see a bloodstain or bullet hole.

Please don't feel sorry for me. Please stop acting weird. Please act normal. "I'm okay, really. I promise." The brace is hot, making my leg sweat.

Lacey drifts up. Her white-blond, hip-length hair falls around her face as she stares down at my cane. "Your cane is so pretty," she says quietly. I flush, but with happiness. The cane is the only thing I like about this whole deal.

My cane is polished wood, carved with the shape of a vine that curls up and around the base of the round, smooth handle. It feels lovely.

"Want to hold it?" I offer, handing it to her. Kelly gasps and I notice Georgie shooting Lacey a reprimanding look.

"Guys," I say, beginning to get really annoyed. "I'm not falling over. Look." Sure enough, I was standing on my own two feet. They just didn't realize that I had a way of inconspicuously shifting all of my weight onto my right leg.

"Let's get you to your locker," Kelly says simperingly. Lacey hands me my cane, grins, and we start down the hall.

As we reach the stairs, Georgia bites her lip and looks to Kelly uncertainly. "Um, can you do stairs?" she asks me nervously.

Instead of answering, I put my cane under my arm and slowly but surely, using the railing for support, make my way down the stairs.

Of course, everything gets worse when I get downstairs.

People recognize me here. My entire eighth grade class seems to have either read the news story or had it read to them. As I hobble past, people whisper behind their hands, quickly avert their eyes, or even stare shamelessly at my leg, just like Georgia did.

Lacey takes my forearm and squeezes it. She seems to be the only one understanding what I'm going through, although she has experienced nothing like it. But she's read a million books, and she's surprisingly good at accurately describing pain she has never felt.

I notice Kayla, a cheery girl, hit her twin sister on the shoulder, giggle, meet my eyes, and blush, all humor gone from her face. It feels like another bullet is tearing through my gut. Do I honestly make people think they can't be happy around me?

Murmuring in my ear, Lacey says, "My mother called the school. We have all the same classes except I'm in gym while you're in study hall. They think it would be beneficial for me to help you." She flashes me a grin that I can read perfectly: but we both know that's not why I did it.

I feel such gratitude and love toward Lacey that it almost makes up for Casey, a boy who skipped a grade, dropping all his books as he trips in an attempt to flatten himself against the wall trying to get away from me. What is it with these people?

My locker is pretty much neutral ground, almost exactly in the middle of all of my classes. My school is divided into wings, like many elementary schools are. The seventh, sixth, and eighth graders get their own arms branching off of the main building, and the high school is right across the street. The only classroom exception to this wing formation is the band room, located in the main bubble part of the building, where all three grades play together--we are a small school.

I almost open my mouth to share what I just realized, that my dream of playing in marching band in high school is now impossible, when I realize I can't do that anymore. Can't just randomly blurt out what's in my head. Most of it is what people would consider sad, self-pitying, or cynical, and so I would receive pity or annoyance. Except maybe from Lacey. She is very reserved when it comes to sharing her own thoughts, but maybe she'd be normal and cool about that, too.

"Well, at least it didn't happen during school," Georgia says finally in an attempt to break the awkward silence between the three of us.

As much as I would like to pull the topic and thus my thoughts off of my leg, that is obviously not going to happen, and that's the closest to normal she's acted so far--Georgia's worst nightmare would be to miss that much school and I love seeing the old her shine through. I open my mouth to reply when Kelly snaps, "Georgia!" and glares at her.

Since when does Kelly control self-ruling, confident Georgia?

I struggle to keep my temper. "Seriously, I am not some china doll. Guys, come on, we've been best friends for two years! Kelly, you've known me for way longer! You can act normal around me. I'm just a little"--I wave my cane carefully in the air--"slower." I realize that I might sound a little harsher than I mean to.

Only Lacey laughs slightly at my feeble attempt at a joke, and she quickly cuts it off as the others bite their lips and avoid my eyes. With murmured farewells and sad gazes they drift off to their lockers at the end of the arm, only Lacey remaining. Mine is right in the middle, in between my English and math classrooms. I smile slightly as Lacey opens her locker next to mine. Good thing I'm not smart enough to be taking high school math. At least I don't have to hobble across the street.

I have just closed my locker when the bell rings. I turn to Lacey, realizing that I have forgotten my previously memorized schedule. "What's our first class?"

"Follow me," she says with a smile and a wink, and we start slowly off down the hall toward my first class of eighth grade.

CHAPTER TWO

"How was school?" Mom calls as I slam the front door behind me and watch the familiar yellow school bus drive away.

"Awful, as expected," I yell back, dropping my backpack on the floor and sitting on the hardwood, sighing and massaging my leg.

"Aw, baby, I'm sorry," Mom says sadly, that familiar, sickening pity tone in her voice.

"Please don't use that tone. Everything was fine, just...you know how I am with school. It was just my leg hurting, that's all." I try to smile convincingly at her as she walks into the foyer, still looking concerned and pitying.

"Are you sure?" she asks doubtfully.

"One hundred percent. I'm going to go watch some TV." Slowly, I stand and hobble down the hall to what was formerly the master bedroom, now my palace.

If there's one good thing about this whole ordeal, it's the fact that I now get the large master bedroom, fitted with a television and two huge bookshelves. There's also a connected bathroom. Not only does it help that it's on the ground floor, unlike my old bedroom, it is also just plain nice to have.

I close the door and leave it unlocked--Mom's rule after I collapsed one day and was too prideful to call for help for about two hours. She didn't hear me when I fell--what does the difference of a locked or unlocked door make if I'm not going to make noise and alert her to the fact that something is wrong?

My phone buzzes and I take it out of my back pocket.

Hope your first day back wasn't too hard. I know I acted weirdly, but this is my first time in this situation, you know? If you need anything, call me!

I smiled, rolling my eyes at Georgia's perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation. She's just that kind of girl.

it's fine. wasnt too hard, i promise. just treat me normal and we're good to go

I hit send and move over to the TV, turning it on and grabbing the remote. Retreating to the large bed that I often feel lonely in, I start flipping through Netflix. I finally settle on a classic favorite of mine, "The Addams Family," and mouth the words without really thinking about it. My mind is on other things.

All my teachers were condescending or unnaturally nonchalant. My band teacher eyed me nervously out of the corner of his eye as he conducted, as if the bullet had punctured a lung and would soon call for me to die while blowing into the flute. My English teacher pulled me aside before class and told me that she was "here to help, however I can." I just nodded and fled to the far side of the room as quickly as I could. All of the other teachers merely paid extra attention to me and were very nice. I suppose it helps that I was a goody two shoes before the shooting--now, they're inclined to feel sorry for me and help me through their course, however difficult or easy it may be.

Chrissy banged through the door and shouted in a singsong voice, "I'm home!"

"In here!" I call, and she whirls through the door, grabs the remote from my hand, pauses the television, and kisses me on both cheeks. It is quick and spontaneous, just like Chrissy.

"Guess what," she says, voice trembling with excitement, and I suddenly realize that, of course, it's about Max. Chrissy's crush and the boy who suddenly took an interest in her after a pool party at the beginning of summer.

"What?" I ask, eager for the news. Chrissy's light and happiness are contagious. Even though, in a twisted way of thinking of things, it is her fault that I got shot, sometimes she was the only thing that kept me going in the hospital. She was the one who told me they caught the man and that they had also busted an entire drug chain in doing so, because she knew how happy my pain doing some good would make me. She brought me lavender, my favorite scent, and tons of books. She delivered the iPad that Mom and Dad bought me to play videos. She encouraged me to keep trying at physical therapy so someday I could get rid of the brace. I owe a lot of things to her, and her Max crush was one of the most normal things in my post-gun wound days.

"Max asked me out!" Chrissy squeals, stuffing her fist in her mouth like she does when her excitement is overtaking her. Her dark eyes dance.

I grin. "I knew it. I knew he wasn't that stupid." My sister is beautiful, and any guy would be crazy to not want that much positivity in his life.

Chrissy is 5'5, with dreadlocks and a slim form. What she doesn't have in curves she makes up for in her smooth face, button nose, and big eyes. I wish I looked half as good as she does just waking up. While I look like an angry grizzly with a bad limp, Chrissy looks like a waking goddess.

"Yup! He stuck a note to my locker--I'm guessing Joyce told Ken who told Luke who told Max what my locker number was--and gave me flowers and everything!" It is sometimes hard for me to keep track of her friends--Joyce is dating Ken who is good friends with Luke who is even closer friends with Max. I think.

"Where are the flowers?"

"In a vase in my locker. They make it so pretty." Chrissy sighed, sounding for all the word like a lovestruck prep. She's much cooler than that, though. Everyone loves her, and she doesn't hang out with the snotty girls at school, either.

"So, how was your first day?" she asks, bouncing up and down on her knees on the bed.

"It was okay. Everyone but Lacey acted really weird."

"Lacey's awesome," Chrissy stated loyally.

"Yeah, she is." I smile, then falter and frown. "I...Chrissy, it's the weirdest thing. Ever since it happened, I've felt self-conscious about..." I stop, knowing how stupid I'm about to sound.

"About what, Raven?"

"About being black," I blurt out.

"Oh. Oh, baby." Chrissy curls up next to me and hugs me close. "You're beautiful. Beautiful just the way you are. Don't ever think about what that horrible, drunk druggie said to you. Just focus on being you, okay? Now, let's watch this movie." Chrissy presses play, still snuggled against me, and we settle back, watching the cheesy special effects and laughing at the morbid shenanigans of the most dysfunctional family ever.